Reaching
by PossumSoul
Summary: (S3 AU) "Brattleboro, Vermont?" Beckett asks. "Yes, ma'am. I'm calling because you're listed as the emergency contact for a Richard Castle. I'm afraid we have some bad news." *COMPLETE*
1. Chapter 1

A normal day for her has changed over the years. Probably faster than she's bothered to notice.

Before, a normal day for her was seeing how much she could grit her teeth against. Lately, though, it's been how many times she has to roll her eyes before her partner stops with the off-handed and often inappropriate quips. It's nearly every day and she's gotten more used to it than she would ever admit to anyone, least of all him. It might make his ego inflate to bursting, more so than it already is. A normal day for her now is seeing how much she gets distracted from her duties and responsibilities at work, and how much she can really blame on him at the end of the day.

But today wasn't a normal day. There have been days that haven't been normal, such as today. But today, for a reason she can't really put her finger on just yet, was more out of the ordinary that out of the ordinary days usually are for her. The precinct was oddly quiet, but that could be considered normal for some days, with phones only ringing when it was related to bureaucratic malfunction rather than them having duties to perform. It could have been considered a normal paperwork day, a typical nine to five desk day.

But today wasn't a normal day because her partner was absent. Remarkably absent.

Days when he's busy with his writing usually consist of him texting her, begging her to make a body drop just so he'll have an out and be able to leave Gina and her incessant droning. But her phone sat in the corner of her paperwork filled desk all day, serving no other purpose for her today than a paperweight. She hadn't heard from him all day. Those days are out of the ordinary when he doesn't at least bother her once to test the waters of her moods. And it would have been normal enough had it not been for the coffee machine being broken. Everyone else had no problem going back to the old stuff before they got the upgrade.

But her normal days have become accustomed to his white cardboard cups and brown paper sleeves, filled with her favorite dose of vanilla flavored caffeine for the day. Downgrading to that much of a degree would have made her already abnormal day worse.

But she's home now, walking down the hall with her bag, checking her phone one last time for the night, and feeling her stomach growl when she catches a whiff of something her neighbors are cooking. Her mouth salivates, making it oddly dry at the same time, thinking back to this morning when she could just convince her partner to pay for something for the two of them. But since he never showed, she had to settle for going all day without eating.

She pulls out her keys and opens her door, startled to see her lights are already on. Her hand instinctively rests on the grip of her Glock under her jacket. She takes a few cautious steps forward into her living room, but feels herself come down quickly when she realizes who had let themselves in. Her hand falls off her sidearm and she drops her bag from her shoulder, letting it plop down onto the hardwood with a clatter.

"Hey, you." Josh says in a rested voice. It makes her somewhat jealous that she did practically nothing all day and yet is still coming home exhausted.

"Hey," Kate greets him simply, standing in place while he stands up from her couch and leans in. She dodges his lips quickly and kisses his cheek, hoping he'll get the message that she's not in the mood tonight.

Thankfully, it either goes over his head or he decides not to press, and lets his hands fall off her sides. "You're finally home. What kept you so late?" He asks her as she takes off her coat and goes into the closet to hang it up.

"I was at the prison. It's Tuesday."

"Oh, you're uh..." Josh starts, following her into her bedroom where she begins to take off her holster and other effects, "you're still talking to that sniper guy?"

"Yep, every week until he breaks. How'd you get in here, by the way?" She asks, going about changing out of her beige turtleneck and slacks into clothes more suitable for unwinding.

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leans against the door jam. "You showed me where you keep your spare key, remember?"

She goes to her dresser and pulls out a loose fitting 'NYPD' t-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, feeling Josh's wanting eyes on her the entire time. She remembers showing him the cut out she had made above her door for her spare key, and it's then that she remembers they had arranged a night in together. "Oh, yeah." She says in response, reaching for a hair tie to put her hair back in a ponytail.

Josh is silent as she squeezes passed him and into the living room, where she heads for the counter, turning to face him again.

"So, you hungry? We could order in. I'm starving." She says, flipping through her takeout menus.

"Actually, I already ate." He says, coming to lean against the island adjacent from her. She looks up, feeling a mixture of let down, frustration, and annoyance. "I didn't expect you to be home so late, so I started picking at the rest of that lasagna from the other night."

She nods, letting her head fall forward and the menus fall back into the drawer where she got them. She makes no effort to hide her frustrated sigh. It seems that all the things that could have happened today to annoy her that didn't involve her partner's antics, happened.

"I'm sorry, Katie. I should have waited for you." Josh says after clearly reading the signs.

"No, no, it's alright." She says, hoping to keep the air between them at the very least level. "I'll find something." She says, and goes around him, deciding to make up for her distance by placing a hand on his shoulder as she passes him. He seems to accept it and moves out of her kitchen and back to his place sitting in the corner of her couch. After finding herself a salad with as little frills as possible, she grabs a fork and makes her way into her living room, where he's already watching Sports Center and is relaxing comfortably. She puts herself down in the corner of her couch opposite of her boyfriend and starts quickly digging into her salad.

"D'you have a rough day?" Josh asks after a few silent minutes.

She cracks another thick piece of lettuce in half in her mouth before answering, shoving all her food to one side of her mouth. "No, just long. My partner didn't show up today." She explains, eyes still down on her salad.

"They assigned you a partner? I thought you didn't have a partner." He says.

She feels mildly insulted, but she quickly remembers she keeps things as compartmentalized as she can manage. It's not entirely his fault. "No, Castle. He didn't show up this morning, so I didn't get my coffee."

She can see Josh nod out of the corner of her eye and turn back to stare at the TV, leaning against his fist. "Is there something wrong with the coffee pot we bought you, Katie?" He asks, his voice sounding tightly wound, as if not trying to sound hurtful.

She shakes her head as she pushes another piece of salad around her bowl to sweep up some dressing, "No, Castle just knows what I like. That's all. And he's the only one who knows how to fix that stupid espresso machine he bought the precinct, so I didn't get any coffee today. It threw my whole day off."

Josh nods again, trying to be as agreeable as he can be. And it's starting to bug her. If he has something on his mind, he should just tell her. She doesn't have the energy to do this dance with him. "So, you still didn't get anything from that Lockwork guy?"

"Lock _wood,_ Josh," She corrects him, "and no, I didn't. But I will one day. Why?" She asks, putting another few pieces of vegetable in her mouth.

"No, nothing, I'm just saying," he says and turns to look back at the TV, "you've been visiting him every week for a few months now and haven't gotten anything. Maybe it's time to-"

"Drop it? Is that what you're saying you want me to do, Josh?" She asks, quickly accusing him by turning her head to face him and send him an angry stare.

He's quick to lift his hand with the remote still in it. "That's not what I'm saying, Katie. Calm down. I was gonna say maybe you should think of trying a different approach."

She lets out a breath, turning somewhat shamefully down to her almost empty bowl. She jumped the gun in accusing him, of snapping at him. Her moods are somewhat to blame, the fault of her partner not showing up because god only knows why. "Like what?"

"Well, I don't know. But, I mean, these people sound dangerous. Maybe you could just be a little more careful with the way you go about it."

"Josh, I really don't want to talk about this tonight, okay? Castle and I have gotten this far, and I'm not stopping until my mother's killer is behind bars." She tells him sternly, which drains more of her emotional energy than anticipated and stands up, going back into the kitchen to dispose of her dishes.

She can hear the couch cushions shift as he stands to follow her. "Castle's helping you with this?"

"Yeah, I only got this far because of him, why?" She asks and turns on the faucet to rinse out her bowl.

"Nothing," Josh says and shrugs his shoulders while meandering toward her. "I just didn't know you considered Castle to be your actual 'partner'." He says with a set of air quotes. She looks over her shoulder with a pinched, curious brow. "I mean, you've always said he was just the guy shadowing you for his mystery novels. I didn't think he actually helped with anything."

Kate breathes a hollow chuckle, and turns back to the sink. Josh seems to stop the conversation there as she quickly rinses out her dishes and sets them in the rack to dry, then goes to the cupboard to grab a goblet and then over to her wine rack. She roves slowly over her small selection until she finds a bottle, second to last, left over from their night out watching Forbidden Planet. She smiles to herself as the memory of that fun night floats into her mind. She grabs the bottle and quickly pours a glass half full.

"I just didn't know you two were that close." Josh says when she turns back to head into the living room again.

Kate rolls her eyes as she starts toward him. "We're just partners at work, Josh. Okay?" She says, deciding to end the conversation by stopping by his side and leaning up to press a chaste kiss on his jaw, downing the first sip of wine when she leans back down.

She can hear him let out a long sigh before turning to follow her. She puts herself back down on the couch, grabbing her phone once again as she takes another long sip of her wine, to check for any notifications she may have received while she was away in the kitchen. But the anticipation that crawled up her spine melts away into another wave of disappointment when she sees her phone blank except for the time. She sighs to herself and takes another long sip from her goblet.

"Something wrong, hun?" She feels her shoulders shiver at his use of a pet name, but swallows it as she sets her phone back down to the side table.

"No, nothing. Just tired." She explains to him, looking at the TV, which is still on Sports Center. She wants to watch something else, but doesn't really care for the TV to be on at all. She would like to just go to bed, but doesn't want to leave her boyfriend up alone.

"Well, I'm sorry you had a bad day." He says in an honest voice, trying his best to be sweet.

She smiles over to him for his platitude, "Are we still on for tomorrow? I should be off call as long as we don't catch a case."

"Actually, I got booked at the hospital for a double shift. I won't be off until eleven." He says, pushing himself out of his corner and scooching himself closer to her with a grin. "That's why I was hoping we'd get a chance to make up for it tonight."

But she manages to stop him once he's only halfway over the couch. "I'm sorry, Josh, but I'm exhausted. With Castle being MIA all day, it was just... I'm just not in the mood tonight." She downs the rest of her wine quickly in one long swing before standing up and going back into the kitchen. She can hear Josh's disappointed sigh all the way from the sink. She's looking forward to crawling underneath her covers for the night, but a part of her is dreading having to deal with Josh wandering over to her side of the bed sometime before the nights over. He has a tendency of trying again if she shoots him down once.

But luckily, after going through her nightly routine and shutting off the lights, she crawls under her covers, with Josh laying on his side, facing away from her. But before she reaches up to turn off the bedside lamp, she reaches over to her nightstand and grabs her phone, giving him one last shot for contact. But when all she's met with is the time, reading 10:45, she lets out a breath of disappointing resolve, sets her phone back down to the nightstand, clicks off the lamp, and rests her tired head down on the pillow.

And within a few minutes, she can feel herself drift off into a heavy sleep.

By the time she's being woken up, all she can tell is that she hasn't slept nearly long enough. And by the sound of her phone waking her up instead of her alarm clock, it's going to be another long day. Her aching eyes squint through the darkness and she reaches up with a tired arm, grabbing her phone and putting it to her ear, not bothering to check the ID. Only the precinct would call her at this time, whatever that time may be. "Beckett."

"Is this Kate Beckett?" A female voice, other than the usual one from dispatch says on the other end.

Her spine tingles a bit at the unfamiliar voice. She pushes herself upright, pulling the covers off her shoulders. "Yes. Who is this?"

"Ms. Beckett, I'm calling from Brattleboro Memorial Hospital concerning-"

"Wait, Brattleboro?" She asks the lady, cutting her off. "Like... Brattleboro, Vermont?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'm calling because you're listed as the emergency contact for a Richard Castle. I'm afraid we have some bad news."

* * *

 _A/N: Story is loosely based off a song by Buckethead, titled Reaching. Go listen to it. :)_

 _I deleted Honest Liar. As I continued to write it and map it all out, it didn't turn out the way I wanted or had planned it, and I didn't feel it was really worth the effort. So instead, I'm going to try this one. Hope you guys like it. Let me know in the reviews._


	2. Chapter 2

It's the instant that the words _Richard Castle_ hits her ear that every nerve ending in her body stands up on end, her body erupting with a fear and adrenaline that she's only felt a time or two before. She whips off the covers from her body and stands up. "What happened? Is he okay?"

"Mr. Castle was brought in just a while ago and your number was the only one we could find listed in our records."

"What's going on, Katie?" Josh asks, still half asleep, from the other side of the bed.

She's already ripping a pair of jeans up her bare legs, ignoring him to keep pressing the lady on the other end of the line for information. "Just tell me what happened to him." Kate demands, pressing the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she dresses herself in a mad haste, her movements flustered and jittery.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry. All I know is that he was brought in just a little bit ago and was rushed into surgery. That's all that I-" Kate cuts off the line and shoves her phone into her back pocket.

The bedside lamp clicks on from the side of the bed as Kate is pulling a hoodie over her head. "What's wrong, Kate?" Josh asks, having leaned over to her side of the bed.

"Josh, I have to go. Castle's in the hospital." She says, quickly scurrying about to gather up the effects she needs, then pulling on a pair of running shoes.

"Hospital? Did they tell you what happened?" He asks, pushing himself upright in her bed.

"I don't know, okay? I have to go." She says, stopping herself from rushing out the door to move over to the other side of the bed and press a hollow shell of a kiss to Josh's lips. Without another word, she grabs her badge and gun from the top of her dresser, clipping them to her waist on her way out of her bedroom.

"Call me if you need anything." Josh says, sounding as if he's trying to be as sincere as possible.

"Yeah," She tells him as an after thought and hastens to her door, flinging it open and closing it, not even bothering to lock it behind her.

Once down to the sidewalk, she jogs to the road and flags down the first taxi she can, serendipity showing her some good graces as it stops in front of her just as she sticks her hand out. The heavy-set, scruffy looking cabbie moves a toothpick around in his mouth as she jumps in the back seat. "595 Broome, please. Quick."

She slams the door to the cab and he takes off, going the agonizingly normal speed of traffic. She hates sitting still right now. Her blood is rushing through her constricted veins, her breath feels as if it's only going down to her throat, not satisfying her body's needs, that it can't make it passed the lump lodged in her between her heart and her throat. Kate digs out her phone again and starts going through her contacts. She looks below Castle's name to see if she has anyone else's number, but wants to smash her phone with the mere grip of her hand when she sees she doesn't have Martha's or Alexis' numbers.

When she looks up through the window again and sees that they've only made it a couple blocks, she leans forward through the center window. "Could you please speed it up? This is an emergency."

"Lady, this is the speed I go. Same speed as the guy in front of me, got it?" He says in a low, raspy voice.

Kate's angry ignites like a flash fire, burning quickly in her system. "Would flashing my badge motivate you a bit?" She warns him.

The cabbie looks over his shoulders, "You got one?"

With her badge already in hand, she slams it against the plexiglass of the window.

The cabbie eyes it and gives her a single nod of his overweight head. "Alright, officer. Always proud to help out one of New York's finest." He says and jerks into the other lane and gives the cab a considerable boost in speed.

"Thank you." She mutters as she's flung into the back of her seat. After what feels like mere minutes, the cab's breaks squeal outside of Castle's building. Flinging the door open before she feels the momentum of the cab come to a complete stop, she's jumping out onto the street, tossing the cabbie a set of bills through the passenger side window. "Keep the change."

The cab takes off, but she's already running into the building and galloping up the stairs, taking them two at a time, as fast as she can. Why doesn't she have their numbers? What is she going to tell them? How will they react? What can she even say? What is she even doing? She stomps out the questions and doubts starting to cloud her mind as she turns into the hall and speedwalks down to his door, knocking with enough force to make her knuckles sting with pain. She waits, too long of a moment with no answer and no sound of movement on the other side of his dark red door. Impatiently, she knocks again, longer and this time, with even more force.

She didn't even bother to check the time, but she knows they're both probably in bed.

Just as she's raising her hand to knock again, she sees a light come on from under the door, then a split second later, the door is opening with a tired looking Alexis answering the door. Kate's heart stops briefly at the sight of his daughter, fear and an odd sense of guilt washing through her cold-sweat stricken body. "Detective Beckett?" The redhead rasps.

"Alexis," Kate begins with a still pounding heart and takes a small step forward, "I just got a call about ten minutes ago. Your dad's in the hospital."

The teen's entire demeanor changes in an instant, from squinty-eyed and tired to wide awake and utterly stunned and terrified. "What?!"

Kate puts a hand on Alexis' shoulder and pushes herself into the loft. Kate feels intrusive, a sense of shame at having to tell her this, her heart seeming to be coiled like an angry serpent, achingly around her heart. The hand on Alexis' shoulder seems more to steady herself than is it to offer pointless comfort. "Alexis, I need you to get dressed and get Martha as fast as you can, okay?"

"No no, wait- What happened to my dad?! Is he okay?" Alexis demands with her eyes already brimming with tears.

"I don't know, Alexis." Kate answers in as soothing a voice as she can manage right now that only sounds too dishonest to her own ears, keeping her hand gripping tightly on the girl's arm.

"Katherine," A soft voice comes drifting down from the top of the stairs. Kate looks up and sees Martha clad in a silk robe with her hair held back with a headband. "What's going on, dear?"

"Alexis, go. I'll tell you both on the way." She tells the teen sternly and pushes her toward the stairs. Alexis keeps eyeing her tearfully until she reaches the stairs and quickly darts up them. Martha looks dumbfounded as Alexis greets her at the top of the stairs. Kate can tell that Alexis quietly explained the situation by Martha's shocked exclaim from down the hall. Kate pushes a few stray strands of hair back into her ponytail and closes the door. "What the hell are you doing in Vermont, Castle?"

The sound of her own voice seems to spark something in her mind, a switch telling her to investigate. Her eyes dart aimlessly around the loft, thinking he should have left a note for them at the very least. Her legs carry her clumsily to the island on the counter, where she finds a small yellow sticky-note, reading 'don't wait up- Dad', lying next to a set of empty tupperware containers next to the sink. _He didn't tell them where he was going?_ She asks herself, reading the note left on the counter.

Just then, a set of footsteps comes stampeding down the stairs. Kate turns to see Alexis dressed in a pair of jeans and a grey Marlowe Prep sweatshirt, while Martha is in a thrown together outfit of blue silk pants and a blue top. "Did he tell you where he was going?" Kate asks with the note hanging from her index finger.

Alexis looks back and forth between her and the note with a pinched brow, her eyes heavy set with tears. "No, he was here when I left for school this morning."

"We had assumed he was helping you with a case and would be home late." Martha says in an emotion-laden voice.

 _He didn't call or text them all day either, something must've happened this morning._ Kate pushes out a short breath and flexes her spine, steeling herself while taking quick measure of the situation. _I need to get them to the hospital,_ she thinks. "Is your car parked here?" She looks between the two Castle's.

"Y-Yeah, but..." Alexis says while moving around into the kitchen, "I did notice that the keys to the Ferrari were missing from his office."

"Can we talk about this on our way to the hospital, _please!"_ Martha demands from the foyer, emotion soiling her tone heavily.

"Here, the keys to the Lexus are still here." Alexis says from the other side of the kitchen, holding a set of keys in her hand.

Kate rushes toward the girl, grabbing the keys from her hand and rushing out the door, leaving the two other women to follow her, Martha closing the door behind them. As they take the stairs down to the parking garage of the building, Kate's heart still fluttering nervously about in her chest like a swarm of attacking moths, her mind starts racing with theories that she can't afford right now. She knows in the back of her mind she needs a level head, for all their sakes. This is Alexis' father, Martha's son, their family pillar on the line.

But this is also her partner. Her friend.

She shakes away her burning eyes just as she's shoving the metal door to the parking garage open, the metal push handle clanging and echoing loudly against the concrete walls and cement support pillars. Alexis points them to the car, parked against the wall between the wall and an empty space where his Ferrari should be. Kate takes the driver seat, leaving Alexis to get in the front and Martha in the back.

"Alexis, I need you to look up Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and get me the address." Kate says to her passenger and starts the car.

"Brattleboro? Where's that? I thought you said he was in the hopsital." Alexis says, but pulling out her phone anyway.

"It's in Vermont." Kate clarifies, putting her hand on the passenger headrest and looking out the rear window to back up. She can see Martha look at her with fearful confusion.

"Vermont?!" The eldest asks.

"What is Dad doing in Vermont?" Alexis continues, pushing Kate for answers that she doesn't have and is nowhere close to getting.

"I don't know, Alexis." She answers, trying to calm herself as much as she can while she speeds out onto the street. While Kate makes a sharp turn, Alexis goes onto her phone to look up the address of the hospital. "Castle didn't tell you he was leaving?"

"Why on Earth would he be in Vermont without telling us?" Martha asks, shaking her head and leaning her hand against her head, as a frustrated mother would.

"Dad was writing when I left for school this morning. He didn't say anything to you, Gram?" Alexis asks as she turns around in her seat.

"No, not a thing, that irresponsible..." The grandmother trails off. "I left around nine this morning for a class and when I got home. Richard was gone, and I had assumed he was at the precinct with you."

"Is there any reason why he would go to Vermont? Did he have a book signing err... or do you have any relatives who live out there?" Kate asks, maneuvering through traffic to head north.

"No, we don't have any other family, it's just us. And he would have mentioned a signing outside of the city. He always does." Alexis answers.

As Kate checks the rearview mirror, she grips the woven leather on the steering wheel with white-knuckled anxiousness. She should have texted him this morning when he didn't show up. It's her own fault. She could have at least known about all this, maybe could have stopped him from leaving, or at the very least, could have known his motivation. She wasn't doing anything today, nothing important or anything that needed her dire attention. He knows he can always come to her if he needs help with something... doesn't he?

"Well, what about a case?" Martha starts spitballing, hoping to glean some answers as to her son's whereabouts. "Were you two working on anything that could have warranted this... flight of preposterous fancy?"

But she's hoping for answers that Kate doesn't have. "No, we haven't had a case in days. I-I mean..." Kate thinks momentarily, going through her own mental codex of memory, "I had a grandmother who lived up in Burlington, but she died seven years ago from leukemia." She thinks out loud. She's never mentioned her grandmother to Castle, though. Castle would only take the Ferrari if he was joy riding or he needed to get somewhere, really fast. And he wouldn't think not to leave a note for his family unless he thought he'd be back before night fall...

Or he just wasn't in his right mind.

"Was he acting strangely before you left? Did he do anything out of the ordinary that you noticed?" Kate asks, her mind working faster than she can keep track of.

"No, he was normal. He was already writing when I woke up. H-he uh..." Alexis starts, heartbreak starting to seed its way into her voice again the more she speaks, "he did seem distracted about something, but-but I thought he was just focused on writing." Alexis' voice is soiled with burning tears by the time she's finished with her statement. "What if he's dead? I didn't even get to say goodbye this morning!" The girl pleads.

 _I need you to promise me you'll look after Alexis if anything happens to me._

His words and serious tone ring clearly in her head, as if he's saying them right in her ear. So much so, it makes the strong grip she has on the steering wheel go slack for a moment before she shakes her head to focus back on the road. It's the one thing he asked for and was serious, the one thing he wouldn't let go until she gave him the answer he wanted. It was a test of just how much of a partner she had considered him to be. To always be there when they needed each other. It was easy to pass that test up until now. That promise was easy to make to him... then.

Alexis means everything to him.

Martha breaks her out of her thoughts with a soft reassurance, that only breaks Kate's stirring because she knows it won't do any good. "Sweetheart, it's going to-"

"I can't lose him, Gram!" Alexis pleads with tears streaming freely down her face.

"Hey," Kate starts in a soft, but firm voice, giving the girl a chanced glance as she starts crossing the bridge out of the city. "It's going to be fine, Alexis. The women that called me said he had just been taken into surgery."

"Well, did they tell you what happened?" Martha asks for the both of them.

"No... _but_ ," Kate emphasises over to Alexis, "I'm going to get us there as fast as I can, and your dad needs you to have hope... okay? Your dad had enough forethought to put me as his emergency contact, so once we get there, I'll find out exactly what happened. But in the meantime, I need both of you," Kate says, looking over her shoulder to Alexis and Martha, who are giving them their full attention, "to not lose hope. Don't even let your mind go there, alright? Just... say he's going to be alright."

Castle's family look between each other for a moment, wondering if she's serious. And she is. She needs to hear those words, she needs to hear them from someone other than the lying voice in her head that he's going to be alright. She needs to know.

"He's going to be alright." Martha says in a broken voice.

Alexis lets out a soft breath, trying with little effort to rid herself of her wrenched emotions. "He's going to be alright."

Kate grips the steering wheel tightly again with cold, sweaty hands, and says it to herself once more. "He's going to be alright."

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you liked this chapter. Let me know. :)_


	3. Chapter 3

The drive up I-95 takes them longer than any of them want, each of their desperations to reach Castle growing with every tree and car they speed past. Getting through Connecticut takes them just under an hour, with Massachusetts going by in double the time when they hit a traffic jam just outside of Greenfield. Leave it up to a semi to get stalled in the right lane now of all times.

Everyone's anticipation and anxiety boils over when they finally reach Brattleboro. The sky outside the Lexus is painted a pale, dark blue, with the edges of the horizon light up with the teasings of the late spring sun. They should have been here sooner. The time shows it's already 5:33. She couldn't have gotten the call no later than one in the morning. She could have driven faster, searched for alternate routes when she hit that traffic jam. But she's tired.

And she scolds herself every time she acknowledges it. Just the smallest worry about her own well being feels like a theft; like it's stealing attention away from the man who needs it the most right now. Even taking the time to find herself a cup of coffee or anything with caffeine in it when they arrive feels selfish. They don't even know if Castle's still alive and she's thinking about herself. But she knows herself well enough to know that once the last of the adrenaline is spent from her system, she's going to crash. And it's going to be right then when she needs to be full throttle. It always is.

"Beckett, up here!" Alexis says quickly, startling Kate out of her thoughts with a hand pointed out the windshield.

Kate takes the turn and pulls into the parking lot, finding the nearest parking spot closest to the entrance, legal or not, she'll worry about later. And Alexis is already jumping out of her side of the car and sprinting full force toward the door, having even to shimmy herself inside when she gets to the automatic doors before they open fully. Kate is able to find her patience and goes around to the other side to usher Martha out of her side. To her surprise, she feels Martha grab onto her hand and pull her as she jogs toward the door after Alexis.

Kate can see Alexis already at the reception desk, with a never-ending supply of tears streaming down the girl's cheeks. She thought the girl would have cried herself out by now... but she should have known better. It could be years before the supply runs out. Her's haven't.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Slow down, and-"

"Richard Castle." Kate says clearly, having just been dragged through the door by the elder redhead.

The heavy-set, black nurse's eyes widen at Kate and she quickly stands up. "Yes, the man that was dropped off earlier this morning."

"Where is he?!" Alexis demands angrily.

Kate and Martha are standing behind her, with Martha seeming to only be supported by physical contact as she puts a free hand on Alexis' shoulder as soon as she's within reach. The nurse, clad in faded pink scrubs, comes around the desk with her hands outstretched. "He's still in surgery, sweetheart." The kindhearted woman says.

"What? For four hours? What happened to him?! Tell me!" Alexis starts to scream.

Kate reads the nurse's expression and reaches forward, grabbing Alexis by the arm as softly as she can afford to while still holding a grip. "Alexis, hey," She says in a soft voice, trying to pull the distraught girl back. Martha lets go of Kate's hand and puts both her arms around Alexis once she gives up her attack. Kate then looks passed them both and steps around them, eyeing the nurse. "Has there been any word at all?"

The nurse closes her eyes and nods, "I'll go check right now, okay?"

Kate gives the nurse a nod and plants a hand on the back of her waist, pushing her stray bangs out of her face and pacing toward his family. She can already feel herself starting to fade. Her mind feels the most drained. Her years of experience as a beat cop, being the first responder to car crashes, hit and runs, stabbings, muggings, and murder after murder after murder, she has too many images and was afforded far too much leeway to put Castle's boyish smile in every one of them. What he's doing all the way up here... she hasn't been up all this way since before her mother died.

The sound of the phone hanging up breaks all of them out of their thoughts and they all turn quickly to give the nurse their full attention, Kate remaining separated from the two, who are clinging to each other now. "I'm sorry, but..." She can feel her entire body freeze at the nurse's tone, everything going numb, "there's still no word. He's still in surgery."

With that, Kate lets out a short, erratic breath, feeling her heart still palpitate inside of her.

"The doctor will let you know as soon as there's any news, okay?" The nurse tells them as she moves back behind the desk.

Alexis' head falls forward and Martha begins to usher the girl forward and into the waiting area. But Kate, needing more answers, steps up to the desk and leans in. "Can you tell me the circumstances of him being brought in?"

"He wasn't brought in, ma'am." Kate feels her mind's thoughts stutter, and the nurse can clearly tell. "No, he was dropped off."

"Dropped off? By who? Where are they?" She asks, frustrated.

"Ma'am, they left about three hours ago." The nurse answers, being as patient as she can.

"Did he file a report with the police?" She demands, her voice being raised to a level she only uses in interrogation.

"Yes, ma'am, it's our policy that-"

"I know it's your _policy._ It's the law, I'm a cop! Okay?" She says, ripping her badge off her waistband and flashing it. "Now, tell me who dropped him off!"

"Officer," The nurse says calmly as she stands from her seat and puts both her hands out in front of her, "Mr. Castle was dropped off by a concerned citizen earlier this morning and was rushed into surgery. I don't know any more than that, I'm sorry." She urges Kate honestly. "The local police were waiting for his family to arrive to ask you some questions, and since he was a resident of New York, they figured it would be a while until you got here. I was just about to get on the phone and call them... okay?"

Kate feels the tenseness slowly melt from her body as the nurse sits back down, only taking her eyes off her when she goes to dial the numbers on the phone. After a deep breath, that she can feel shake as she takes it in, she paces her way into the waiting area, where Alexis and Martha are sitting in a pair of chairs closest to the door to the ER. "What'd she say?" Alexis asks tearfully, her face stained with exhaustion and emotion.

Kate runs another hand through her hair, "She said that he was dropped off by someone claiming to be a concerned citizen."

"Dropped off?"

"Concerned citizen?" Both Martha and Alexis ask over each other.

"So they don't know what happened?" Alexis asks.

"If they knew, she would have told us, Alexis." Kate says with a heavy sigh. The knot in her stomach won't leave. Her dad is always talking about the clinch in his gut he has, constantly worrying about her. This can't be what he's talking about. How does someone live with this kind of worry? "But if he's been in surgery this long... it must have been..." She trails off, mostly because she feels her throat tighten before the words form on her tongue.

"Oh, my poor Richard," Martha sobs, pulling Alexis into her chest.

"No, he's..." Kate tries to continue, "if he's still in surgery, then that means that he's still alive." She can see Alexis nod her head and swipe sadly at the moisture on her cheek. _You have to still be alive, Castle. You're too important to them to die now._

She doesn't know how long she paces in front of them. She's only conscious of the fact that she can't afford to sit still. If she rests now, she'll crash. And his family needs her right now. Castle needs her to be here for them. She's broken a lot of promises over the years, and can still afford to break a few more. But this one... this one is one she can't afford to break. And by the time she looks out the sliding door, she sees that it's the pale morning, where the sun is just coming over the horizon and hasn't fully cast out the night yet.

And it's then that they hear the swinging doors open. "Richard Castle?"

Alexis is the first out of her seat, just as before, and she's standing in front of the doctor just as Kate is coming to stand behind her. "How is he, doctor?" Martha asks.

The doctor nods slowly and plants his hands on his hips after running a hand through his snow white hair. "He was in really bad shape when he first arrived. We almost lost him and it's been touch and go for the past few hours. But we finally managed to get him stable."

"So he's alive?" His daughter asks, her voice tightly coiled with emotions about ready to burst.

The doctor gives them a solemn nod. "Yes."

Alexis throws her arms around her grandmother, sobbing with relieved laughter into her shoulder, while a new set of tears fall down Martha's cheeks. And Kate can feel a sense of what she can only say is pure joy briefly radiat through her. She wants to hug someone, feels like hugging someone, but the only person she would feel right hugging right now is on the other side of that door. A part of her feels left out of the good news, looking at Alexis' and Martha's closeness to each other, feeling like a third wheel to the family, but Kate keeps it to herself and puts her hands on the back of her waist.

"Now," The doctor continues, his voice lowering, "I should warn you." He says, which brings all of them out of the relief of hearing their father and son is still alive. "He's stable, but he's still in really bad shape."

"What do you mean?" Kate is the first to get the words out.

The doctor looks over to her with a heavy arch in his brow, "Well, Mrs. Castle, we managed to repair most of the damage done by the gunshot wound. But the two things that-"

"Gunshot?!" Martha asks, pushing Alexis away and taking a step toward the doctor angrily. "Are you telling me that someone _shot_ my son?!"

"Now," The doctor says, holding his hands out in front of him, "the gunshot wound isn't what I'm worried about. The two things I'm most concerned about is the head trauma and his breathing." The family seems to quiet down, all too impatient for the doctor's explanation. "He did suffer a pretty bad blow to the head, but we have to wait until he's more stable until we can do an MRI to see exactly what the damage is. Until then, we have him on a ventilator until we can get him breathing on his own again."

"Oh, my god," Martha sobs and paces away from him.

"But other than that, he has a few broken bones in his left shoulder and a few broken ribs. The gunshot was a through and through to the right shoulder, which was tricky to fix with all the other trauma he sustained. We're listing him as in critical condition for now, until we know the extent of the brain damage." The doctor continues to explain as Martha and Alexis cling to each other again.

Looking at the two, Kate seems to be the only one with the thought to ask. "When can we see him?"

The doctor turns to her with a soft, reassuring smile as he runs a hand through his starch white hair. "They're moving him now, Mrs. Castle. You can see him just as soon as he's settled in a room in the ICU." The doctor says and turns to head back through the doors of the ER.

But Kate is quick to stop him, "Doctor?"

The doctor turns to her before leaving, "Yes, Mrs. Castle?"

And it's the first time his words register in her brain, sending a hammer of denials to her heart. "N-No, I'm-his... he's my... we just work together, he's my partner." She says and fumbles blindly for her badge and pulls it off her waist. "Detective Kate Beckett."

The doctor turns to face her fully, giving her his full attention while crossing his arms.

"Do you have any idea what happened to him? The nurse said he was dropped off."

The doctor nods and looks down to the floor, "Well, if it wasn't for the gunshot wound, the injuries seem to be that of a car crash victim. When he was received, he had a sleeve ripped from his shirt that was tied around the gash in his leg. If we'd gotten him sooner, it might not have been as hard as it was to get him stable."

"Sooner? What do you mean?"

The doctor shakes his head and shuffles closer to her, "If I'm being honest, Detective... it's a miracle he's alive at all. He lost far too much blood to have just sustained the damage he did when he was first brought in. If I had to take a guess, I'd say whatever happened to him happened hours before he was brought in."

Kate's mind can't think. Her heart is thumping in her chest at the fear of her partner going through whatever he went through. If he had just called her... if she had only texted him yesterday. "Hours?"

"I wouldn't tell his family, but..." The doctor tells her and leans in even closer, chancing a glance in Alexis' and Martha's direction, "I was very close to calling it when I first got him."

"It..." Kate stutters, "it was that bad?" She asks, selfishly burning eyes stinging and blurring her vision.

"He was barely alive at all."

She can feel her heart start to crumble into pieces, her once strong-willed steely resolve slowly giving way to a breakdown.

"We actually didn't even know who he was when we received him." The doctor says after giving her a moment, that does nothing but loosen her resolve when left to her own thoughts.

But the doctors newest piece of information catches her rapt attention. "What do you mean? He didn't have his ID on him?"

"No," The doctor shakes his head, looking away and putting his hands on his hips again, "no wallet, no cell phone, nothing. The only reason we were able to identify him is because one of the nurses recognized him as a writer and was able to give us his name. Which is how I'm guessing they contacted his family." The doctor says while giving a nod over to the two redheads, still wrapped in each other's arms, swaying back and forth.

Kate decides not to explain the situation involving the nurse contacting her, since Castle was smart enough to put her as his emergency contact, probably knowing Alexis either wouldn't know what to do or would have called her anyway, and Martha would probably be about as useful as she's being right now if it was left up to her. "Thank you for your help, Doctor."

He nods and gives her a friendly smile. "I'll send for the nurse when he's settled."

* * *

 _A/N: loving the repsonse I'm getting. Hopefully this chapter leaves you in better health. Let me know. :)_


	4. Chapter 4

The spout hisses and sputters loudly. The steam rising from the cardboard cup and the dark liquid coming into view from the inside reminds her briefly of the precinct's espresso machine, but as she takes the first sip of the coffee from the hospital's vending machine, she's reminded of what the espresso machine replaced. Her face twists together at the sour, yet bitter taste of the liquid assaulting her palate. "I see what you mean, Castle."

She braces herself for another sip and turns back to the waiting area, where Martha and Alexis have returned to their seats, waiting to be called in to see the patriarch of their family. Kate meanders slowly back over to them and takes another long sip of her coffee, seeing Alexis with her phone to her ear, her eyes red and puffy from the long night of crying them out. "Yeah," She says into her phone.

Kate steps up to Martha, leaning down, "Who's she talking to?"

Martha looks up at her, "Gina." Kate can feel her stomach turn to a knot for a moment, having too many memories tangled up with that name. "Being his publicist, she should be able to handle the press and what not."

Kate nods and leans back, looking down into the dark battery acid in her cup. She hadn't even thought of any of that. She's had far too much on her mind, dealing with the publicity of Castle being in critical condition three states away from home isn't something she would have had the thought to deal with before it became a problem.

"I'll call you as soon as we know anything, Gina." Alexis says. Kate can hear the chatter on the other end of the line but doesn't try to listen in. And after a moment, Alexis hangs up and lets her hands fall in front of her. The girl looks exhausted, more so than Kate feels. Totally emotionally drained... for the time being. She knows the feeling well enough to know her reserves can fill up in no time and without any warning. "Gina's going to put out a statement to the press. She asked me to call her when his condition changes."

Kate feels something inside of her take over and take charge. "I can do it, Alexis."

Alexis looks over with a pinch in her brow. "It's not a problem, Beckett."

"I need to make sure that she doesn't leak any details to the press that could pertain to the investigation. I can handle it." Kate explains and quickly takes another sip of her coffee. Luckily, Alexis doesn't put up a fight and simply nods, looking back down to the linoleum. She isn't looking forward to talking to Gina, is dreading it the more she thinks about it. But this is her responsibility now, the promise she swore to him she'd keep. Alexis needs to focus on her family right now. If someone had told her to do that, she might be in a totally different place right now.

"Castle?" A nurse calls from them the swinging doors. Martha and Alexis both stand as quickly as they can, with Kate standing behind them. "You can see him now."

They all quickly walk toward the nurse, but Kate is stopped by the sight of two uniformed officers walking through the doors sliding open. "Beckett?" Alexis asks, having stopped near the door into the ICU.

Kate turns and waves them ahead, "You go ahead, Alexis. I need to talk to the police. I'll be there in a minute." Alexis gives her a small nod and darts through the door, being followed closely by her grandmother. Kate then takes another drink of her coffee and turns toward the officers. "Officers."

"Are you the family of the man that was dropped off last night, ma'am?" The older one asks, sounding stern and serious.

Kate feels herself straighten up, "Richard Castle, yes. What can you tell me?"

The younger of the two nods in her direction, "May we ask how you're related to Mr. Castle?"

Kate rolls her eyes broadly and pulls her badge from under the waistline of her hoodie. "Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD's Twelfth precinct. Richard Castle is my partner."

The older officer stares somewhat seriously in her direction. "I'm sorry, Detective, we need to speak with his immediate family." He says and starts to move past her while the younger one stays put.

But Kate is quick to raise her hand and stop him. "You can speak to _me,_ officer. His family has been waiting to see him all night. I can answer any questions you have because I have a few of my own, understood?" The younger officer eyes his obvious superior and the older officer steps back and puts his thumbs under his belt, clearly giving her their full attention. And when she knows that she has it, she begins. "Now, what happened to my partner?"

"Mr. Castle was brought in by a local just after one AM this morning. He said he found him unconscious in the woods about three-quarters of a mile off the road from a bad car crash." Kate can feel the fear and heartache for her partner coil around her heart like a snake. "He said he happened upon the crash. After that, he found your partner in the woods and carried him back to his vehicle and got him here." The older officer explains.

"Wait-" Kate demands, lifting the hand filled with her coffee up to them. "A man brings someone into the hospital and claimed he just happened upon a crash, then just _found_ someone lying unconscious in the woods and you don't detain him for questioning?"

"His story seemed to be honest, ma'am." The younger officer shrugs his shoulders.

Kate turns her angry focus over to him, firing all her angry at him. "It's _Detective,_ officer. And the man who brought him should be considered the prime suspect in the attempted murder of my partner. In cases like this, the killer not only inserts themselves into police investigations, they often try to feed you false information to throw you off their trail."

"Earl?" The older officer smirks and shakes his head, "No, not Earl. The guy wouldn't hurt anyone. We grew up together."

"Detective," The younger officer says calmly, reaching a hand out to her, "I can understand where you're coming from. But we know the guy who dropped off your partner. He's a good, honest man who wouldn't do this sort of thing."

Kate cranes her head forward and lets out a sharp frustrated breath. After a moment, she flicks her bangs to the side and looks between the two officers. "I need Earl's full name and where I can find him so I can question him myself. I also need a copy of his original statement he gave to you and to be taken to the scene of the crash." She begins to rattle off, looking down to the floor as she flips into full detective mode. "I also need to see the-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," The older officer says, stopping Beckett cold in her tracks. "I'm sorry, Detective. But you're out of your jurisdiction by about three state lines. You don't have any authority here. We're handling this investigation internally." He arrogantly explains. But she knows exactly what he's saying.

The younger officer eyes his superior cautiously before looking back to Beckett. "Can you think of anyone who might want to do something like this?"

But Beckett glares angrily at the officer, " _Yes,_ I can think of someone. I can think of a lot of people who'd want to do something like this. Castle's helped me put _dozens_ of killers behind bars, of _course,_ there's people out there who'd want to see him dead. And I need to investigate this to see who it was."

"I'm sorry, Detective." The older officer says clearly, "Our captain wants this handled internally. We're not even sure if this was deliberate. For all we know, it could have just been a bad accident." The officer says arrogantly, but it makes her blood boil. She knows what he's saying. And it's the reason she became a cop in the first place. "Now, if you don't have any more information for us, we need to be going."

The older officer gives her a half-lidded glare as he turns and starts to walk out, but the younger officer stays standing in front of her, looking anxious and all too secretive toward her.

"Thomas!" The officer yells for his subordinate.

The younger looks over his shoulder. "Can't I get some coffee first? I've been on shift all night."

"The captain's waiting for us, kid." He says back near the receptionist's desk and turns out the sliding doors.

The younger officer starts walking backward toward his partner, looking forward at Kate. "Bar of the diner on Marlboro, he eats there almost every morning."

Kate's brow knits tightly as the officer continues to jog backward, "Who?"

Without an answer, the officer turns and jogs to catch up with his partner outside. And letting out a sigh, tucking the information away in her mind, Kate downs the last of her coffee and heads through the door toward the ICU. Kate follows the signs in the hall until she's reached a long corridor bustling with the soft buzz of busy nurses and doctors going from room to room as they make their rounds for the morning. Kate walks down the hall until she sees through the blinds of a room, seeing the outline of two figures standing near a bedside.

Taking a chance, Kate walks up to the open door, but she feels her legs almost give when she sees him. She can feel everything fall away, her blood turning to ice in her veins.

He looks so... broken.

With invading, foreign tubes piping from his body, her partner lays motionless in a hospital bed. His face is badly cut, his head is wrapped in a bandage, his arm is in a sling, and his right shoulder is bandaged, a tube is running out of his mouth and into a machine at his bedside, and she can only guess what he looks like under the covers of the bed. The man she's come to rely on and call her partner, the man she's come to believe so valiantly in, to even consider to be her closet friend when things like this would happen to anyone else, the man she could always look to for a silver lining... is now reduced to this.

A man lying unconscious in a hospital bed with tubes, wires, and bandages being the only thing keeping him breathing.

Alexis is the first to notice what is sure to be a ghost standing in the doorway of the room, and she's broken out of the riptide of swirling emotions by the girl's soft, tearful gaze. She knew she could find more tears if she tried. "I-I..." Kate tries, but fails. And after a moment, her eyes going from Castle to his daughter, she tries again. "I spoke to the police."

Martha turns from her place, sitting in a chair next to her son's bedside, "And?"

"They said," Kate sighs and paces her way into the room, "that they were handling the investigation internally."

"Handling the- what... what does that mean?" Alexis asks, confused.

"It's cop for 'we're sweeping it under the rug'. They're not accepting outside help so they can say the investigation has no new leads and hope it just... goes away."

"Wait, so..." Alexis starts, taking a few steps towards Kate. "What happens now? We just forget this?! We don't even know what happened! They can't just-"

"I know," Kate interrupts her with an outstretched hand, which after a moment, she places on the girl's arm, "Alexis, I know. But I'm going to do something your dad always does when I give him orders and I'm going to ignore them." That earns her a small smile, which she can tell Alexis is trying to fight. "I have a few calls to make and I have a lead I'm going to run down. So, I'm going to head out and I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

"B-but..." Alexis stutters as Kate turns to leave the room, not having the stomach to look at her partner in this condition again. Kate turns back with a softly raised brow. "But what about school? I mean, Dad could be here for weeks. And... and we don't have any clothes or-or-"

"Hey," She stops her, putting her hand back on Alexis's shoulder again. "Don't focus on that right now, alright? Don't worry about anything else, just..." Kate trails off and looks over to her father's heart monitor. "Just, anytime you start worrying about anything else, look over at that heart monitor. Every time that blinks, that means your dad is still alive. Can you do that?"

Alexis seems to calm herself down and gives Kate a reassuring nod. She gives her shoulder a squeeze before smiling over to Martha, who's looking warmly at the situation, and Kate turns to leave.

She quickly makes her way outside, shoving all other thoughts and lingering questions and doubts out of her mind as she slumps down into the driver's seat of Castle's silver Lexus and turns the key. _Diner on Marlboro,_ she thinks to herself as she pulls out into the street. After maneuvering through the streets of the unfamiliar town of Brattleboro, Kate finally finds the diner the cop mentioned to her. A small white building with green lettering, reading ' _Royal Diner'_ on the side. Kate pulls into the parking lot next to an old Chevy pickup and heads inside.

There are a few patrons sitting inside, some conversing quietly in the booths, but one man is sitting at the bar, hunched over a plate. With a long, dirty colored beard, heavy set and easily being six foot two or six foot three, with a pair of worn work boots on and a flannel shirt, Kate clinches her teeth and starts toward him, taking the stool next to him. "What can I get you, dear?" The middle-aged waitress asks her from the other side of the counter.

"Just coffee, please." Kate says, honestly wanting a decent cup of coffee. While the waitress puts a mug down in front of her, Kate looks over to the man next to her, watching him as he stabs his fork into his breakfast. "Are you Earl?"

The man doesn't turn his head, but eyes her with a set of aged, beady eyes. "Yeah," He says in a low, guttural voice.

Kate lets out a breath and takes the first drink from her freshly poured coffee. "You dropped off a man to the hospital late last night." When Earl's expression doesn't shift from a blank stare and his eyes don't move away from his plate, Kate continues, "How'd you find him?"

"What's it to you?" He asks.

"That man is my partner." She answers strongly. Earl eyes her from the side again, but doesn't turn to look at her. "I'm going to ask again. How'd you find him?" She repeats, putting more force and volume into her question.

"Found the crash. Noticed the blood." He answers her, seeming completely uninterested.

"That doesn't explain how you found him almost a mile into the woods like you told the police."

Earl raises his head from his plate and stares ahead of him, as if annoyed, and turns to her, "I followed it."

"And you expect me to believe you carried a man who's six foot two and easily two hundred fifty pounds three-quarters of a mile through the woods, what... out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Look, lady, I told the cops everything I know, okay?" He says, turning back to his breakfast.

"Calm down, Earl. The man's obviously important to her." The waitress says from across the counter.

"What's that got to do with me?" Earl asks rhetorically.

"Earl," Kate says, her voice starting to quiver as she gets an image of her partner lying in that hospital bed, that broken, helpless man that she cares too deeply for to let him down like this. "Please," She pleads, "that man you found... he's _very_ important to me. And if I have to go back and tell his seventeen-year-old daughter that whoever did this to her father is going to get away with it, it will send her on a path that I _can't_ let her go down. Now, _please..._ anything you can tell me..."

After a moment, Earl wipes off the sides of his mouth and leans forward on his arms, turning to look at her. "Look," he begins in a softer tone, "I found the car crash on my way back home. I live a ways outside of town and the parts of the road I drive on are pretty empty that time of night. I'm wasn't surprised I was the first one to find it. When I first found the car, I figured it was just some rich kid out joy riding and left his car for Daddy to replace. But when I saw blood, bells started to go off. I followed the sign out into the woods where I found your partner lying on the ground, propped up against a tree. From the looks of it... he'd been running for his life."

"You..." She trails off, "how were you able to follow it that far?" She asks.

"Been hunting since I was a boy. I know how to follow a blood trail." He answers.

"And how could you-"

"Former Marine. I know how to get a man out of the thick when I need to." He answers, his patience seeming to have run out. And Kate, with her gut telling her that he has nothing to hide and no reason to lie, accepts his answer and reaches for her wallet and puts a few singles down for her coffee and slides off the stool. Feeling lost, she heads for the door. "Impound lot opens at ten. It's about ten miles down from where I found the crash."

* * *

Back at the hospital, Kate is walking tiredly through the doors and heading for the ICU to sit with Alexis and mull over what to do next. She's never been this exhausted, but she's also never needed to keep going and forge ahead more than she does now.

Kate shuffles passed the reception desk with her hands tucked into the pocket of her hoodie when she hears the nurse behind the desk. "There she is now. Detective Beckett?" The nurse calls.

Kate turns and sees a stout, black-haired man in a business suit standing at reception with a briefcase in his hand. "Yes?" She asks him.

The man smiles and extends his hand. "Kate Beckett? I'm Bill Richmore, Rick's lawyer."

Her mind tired and not wanting to deal with any new details of anything new regarding any of her new responsibilities, she simply nods her head. "Yeah, what uhm... what can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry, I got here as soon as I heard. Can we sit?" He asks, motioning for a pair of seats against the wall. Kate nods and moves toward the seat, sitting down more heavily than she should be, with Castle's lawyer sitting next to her. "So, uh... how's he doing? I got the news from his publicist just a few hours ago."

"He's alive, but... more than that we don't know yet. It could be weeks before he's awake. We won't know until they can do a brain scan."

He nods and lets his eyes fall to the floor for a moment. "Well, uh... the reason I'm here," The lawyer continues after taking a pause and opens his briefcase and pulls out a large, tan envelope, "is because a couple of months ago, Rick gave me instructions on what to do if this situation were to ever arise. He told me I should give you this. Sort of a- living will."

Kate takes the envelope, first feeling what she can tell is a set of keys through the paper and sets it in her lap. "Thanks." Is all she can manage.

"And please, Detective, if there's anything you need help with, my card is right there. Call me anytime." He says, pointing to his business card stapled to the top. "Rick's a great guy and he told me that if there's anyone in the world he could trust, it's you."

With burning eyes, Kate nods again as Castle's lawyer smiles, stands up, and heads out the door. And with a very heavy heart, Kate tears at the top of the envelope. The first thing she sees is a large set of papers, looking like mostly legal forms, but she can see another smaller, white envelope lying on top. She takes it and sees it reads ' _Beckett'_ in pen. She'd recognize his handwriting anywhere. She swallows fruitlessly the lump in her throat and opens the envelope, pulling out the pieces of folded paper inside.

 _Beckett,_

 _If you're reading this, then that probably means I've done something stupid. And in that case, I'm sorry and I probably deserve whatever it is that happened to me. Having just disarmed a bomb set to destroy all of Manhattan has me thinking, so I'm writing this to give you everything you need. I'm leaving this letter with my lawyer and giving him instructions to give it to you should anything happen to me. Believe me, I never intended for you to have to live up to that promise you made, to take care of Alexis if anything should happen to me. But I want you not have to worry about anything if it does.  
_

 _So, with this letter, I'm including a set of keys to the loft. I always said you had a home with us. Just because I'm out of the picture because of whatever it is I've done doesn't change that. Make yourself at home there, Beckett. My castle is your castle... after all._

 _I'm also including a copy of my credit card for any expenses you might have. Don't give this to my mother, her's has a limit. And don't worry, you're going to have a rough time running out of all my money. Nikki Heat's pretty popular, thanks to you. And I'm also giving you a list of Alexis' teachers, number to the school, her doctor, and a list of other numbers that might come in handy, should you need them._

 _Alexis looks up to you, Beckett. I've always wanted her to have someone to look up to like you. And I know that you'll do the best job you can, just like you always do._

 _If you're reading this and something has happened to me, then that means Alexis is going through something she's never had to go through before. I don't know how she's going to handle it. But you're the strongest person I've ever met in my entire life, Beckett. If anyone can show her how to get through it, it's you. I'm putting my faith in you to guide her through whatever it is that's happened to me, because I know that you won't let me down. Hell, you might even do a better job than I did. Just don't let her forget that I love her._

 _Thank you, Beckett. I know I can count on you, always._

 _Rick~_

* * *

 _A/N: Big apology to anyone who actually lives in Brattleboro. The northeast is pretty much the only corner of the country I didn't live in as a kid. If any of the readers actually do live there, I'd love some help. Let me know. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

"What happened, Beckett?" Montgomery's stern tone says to her over the line.

She answered her phone without having done any emotional preparation for yet another barrage of questions. He must've just heard the news. "I don't know yet, Sir."

"Are you with him?"

"Yes, Sir. I was the one the hospital called. I picked up Martha and Alexis and rushed them up here. They're sitting with him now." She explains while she paces in the waiting area.

"What'd the police say?"

Kate lets out a choked sigh and looks up toward the lights, "That they're handling it internally." She says knowingly.

"Handling it- Richard Castle ends up in the hospital in the middle of the night in Vermont from wrecking his Ferrari and you're telling me they're writing it off?" He asks angrily. "What the hell is he doing way up there anyway?"

"I don't know, Sir!" She replies pointedly. She hears her captain sigh over the receiver of his phone and after giving him enough of a pause, she continues. "His family doesn't know what could have brought him up here and I need to find out what happened, Sir. I... I can't leave until I do."

Montgomery seems to pause on the other end of the line, "What are you asking me, Beckett?"

"Sir, I'd like to be put on leave."

"Until?"

Kate cranes her neck and spins around in her pacing across the floor. "Until further notice. Something is going on and I'm not leaving until I know Castle's okay."

"Your gut telling you that?" Montgomery asks, softly prodding his lead detective for more details.

"No, the fact that he was found unconscious in the woods almost a mile from the crash with a gunshot wound is telling me that. My gut is telling me that whatever brought Castle up here is bad enough for someone to want him dead. And if that's the case, I need to take care of Alexis and Martha and make sure they're safe."

"The local police are really writing this off?"

"My badge can't get me anything here, Sir. I'm out of my jurisdiction and they're refusing to let me investigate." She vents, putting more frustration and strain in her voice than she realized she had built up.

"So what are you gonna do?"

Kate lets out a small sigh and runs a hand through her tied back hair again, "What Castle would tell me to do."

"Investigate it anyway?"

Kate smiles to herself, "You said it, Sir, not me."

Montgomery breathes a sigh of resolve into his phone, signaling to Kate that he's about to end their conversation. "Well, let me know if you need someone's feet held to the fire, Detective."

Kate nods to herself and paces her way slowly back toward the door into the ICU. "I will, Sir. Thank you." The line disconnects and she tiredly shoves her phone back into her back pocket and pushes the doors open and moves down the hall back toward his room. She still hasn't gotten used to the sight of him in that condition. And she can prepare herself for the shock it sends into her spine and the knot it twists her stomach into all she wants, but it's never enough. If Martha and Alexis weren't here to act as a responsibility buffer, she might let the tears actually start falling instead of begrudgingly letting them sneak out, like she has been.

With the tan envelope still in hand, Kate walks back into his room, the same wave of horror hitting her in the face, only harder, when she lays eyes on him. "So, uh..." Kate moans and meanders herself to the foot of his bed, where Alexis and Martha are both sitting in a pair of chairs by his bedside, "it seems he planned ahead for once and left me a few things." She says, moving the envelope in her hand.

"Like what?" Alexis asks, being comforted by her grandmother's arm draped lovingly over her.

"A set of keys to the loft, credit card for expenses, a few other things." She explains, her eyes feeling like they have lead weights tied to them, her legs feeling about ready to give out, and her body starting to sway. She's too exhausted to keep going. It might not be this bad if the constant tension of the situation was as draining as it is. But she feels like she has an excuse. Martha and Alexis both look about as exhausted as she does. "Why don't we go check into a hotel and you guys can get some rest while I make some more calls, okay?"

Martha nods, her parental instincts seeming to kick in when she looks over to Alexis. "Come on, darling. Your father would have a conniption if he saw you in this condition."

Alexis' dull eyes rove back over to the unconscious body of her father, but Kate's remain glued to the floor, forcing herself not to know what staring at him would do to her. "Can you just give me a minute?" She asks in a low, hushed, almost dead tone.

Martha is slow to agree, but she gives the girl's arm a tender pet and stands up. Kate gives her a friendly smile and lets her walk out the door in front of her, where she closes it behind her. "So, I just have to make a few calls then I'll head back to the city and pack our bags."

"Beckett," Martha says softly.

"I don't think her school would have a problem just giving Alexis her assignments. I can pick them up on my way back."

"Katherine." She repeats, coming to stand in front of her with the same loving hand that was once on a distraught seventeen-year-old girl. Kate comes to a stop in her thoughts and worrying when she feels it. It's been a lifetime since she's felt a mother's touch toward her. "Alexis and I will be fine."

Kate is quick to try and shake her off, "We still don't know what happened to him, Martha. And since the police won't let me on the investigation, I have to do it on my own. And you two look exhausted." She rattles off.

"So do you, dear." Martha cuts her off softly, giving her upper arm a gentle squeeze. "Katherine, you don't have to take this much on yourself and you are smart enough to know that. Now, why are you really doing all this?"

Kate looks almost shamefully down to the floor between them, gathering as much fortitude in her voice as she can. "I made him a promise, Martha." She starts, looking back up at the woman in front of her. "And I can't afford to know what it's like to let him down on this. I promised him to look after you guys if this ever happened and that's what I'm gonna do. When my mom died, I was on my own. And I promised Castle that I wouldn't let Alexis go through that."

It isn't until she takes a pause to gather more words that she feels a pair of tears fall down her cheeks.

"I have to do this, Martha."

Martha takes a moment, letting her gaze soften considerably toward her. "Well, if you are going to do all that, you need to be rested, as well as ourselves." She says, waving a hand toward Castle's room. "Alexis and I have both agreed to stay as long as it takes for Richard to recover, but I wasn't sure if you'd agree to it as well. I have taken the liberty of asking a few nurses for a nice hotel to stay in, preferably long term, and we can all head there together."

Kate nods, swiping angrily at the emotion she let manifest on her face. "Yeah, you and Alexis can stay together. I can get a room of my own and I'll call the school later."

"Let's just get some rest first. Okay, kiddo?" She says, ending the conversation there when she sees the door behind Kate open.

* * *

The hours go by quickly and by the time she's cracking her eyes open again, the blinds to her hotel room are a darker, more vibrant shade of orange, with the sun getting ready to set for the evening. Her eyes squint achingly over to the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand beside the bed in her hotel room and see it's just past five in the evening. Her eyes close again as she's pulled in by the temptation of her slumber, burrowing her head deeper into her pillow and pulling the covers over herself again.

But when her mind starts to catch up with her, she realizes that she doesn't have a choice. She has to get up. Letting out a long breath, she tosses the covers off her still mostly fully clothed body save for her shoes, and pushes herself upright, swinging her legs out until the balls of her feet scrape the carpet. For a moment, she pauses to listen next door but hears only silence. They must still be asleep. She checks the time again, seeing that if she's to be back at a decent hour to get them their things, she'd better leave now.

And just five minutes later, she's grabbing the keys to the Lexus, her badge, her Kahr CW40 backup piece concealed under her loose-fitting faded purple hoodie, and heads outside and down to the car, quickly making her way out of town toward I-91. Martha had offered to let her wake them up so they could come along, but Kate talked her into taking Alexis to see her father before the day was up. If nothing else to talk to him. Talking to a coma patient or... a gravestone in her case, always seemed pointless to her. But she knows that Castle would if he had to. She can at least follow his example.

It's dark by the time Kate hits the Vermont line and switches on the cruise control for the trip back home. Relaxing back into her seat with a long yawn, she glances at her rearview to see a pair of headlights speed up to her rear. She's used to tailgaters, but this guy is cutting it close. Too close. So after a good minute or so of letting the headlights, seeming to belong to a large pickup truck, tailgate her, she stomps on the brakes to brake check this ass.

And when the truck doesn't back up, her muscles tighten with the warning bells going off in her system. She sits up in the driver's seat and puts her palm on the grip of her gun under her seatbelt. A second after, the truck speeds into the other lane and quickly parallels her. She looks over and sees only the side of a large pickup truck, towering over Castle's luxury silver Lexus. Kate reacts by yanking her Kahr off her waistband, holding it between her leg and the center console. But the duly truck revs his engine and takes off ahead of her, flying down the road ahead of her.

Trying to regain her composure, she looks down to see the license plate, but it's too far down the road to make it out.

Kate slows down to sixty-five for another hour, replaying the details of the event over in her head. It could have been just some jackass, wanting to race. But by the time she's crossing back into New York, it's just passing nine o'clock and is nine-fifteen when she's pulling to a stop outside of her building.

Making like a flash up the stairs, she turns the hall to see Josh standing at her door, looking down at his cell phone. "Josh?" She calls to him.

Josh looks up, pleasantly surprised as he smiles. "Hey, I was just about to call you." He says and practically jogs to meet her.

Kate's brow knits as he meets her and presses a chaste kiss to her lips. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"You rushed out of here pretty quick last night. Is everything okay?" He asks, sounding honestly concerned.

Kate puts a hand on his arm as she pushes past him and unlocks her door. "You didn't hear? I thought it would be all over the news by now."

Kate is rushing inside and turning on her lights when Josh is explaining. "No, I just got off a double shift. I thought you'd be home."

She's rushing toward the back of her closet to fetch her suitcase by the time Josh is standing in her living room, asking for more of an explanation with his expression. Kate mostly ignores it as she walks into her bedroom to start packing. "My partner was in a car crash last night." She starts and opens up her dresser. "They found his car just outside of Brattleboro, up in Vermont."

"Is he okay?" Josh asks from the doorway. She can tell he's asking out of obligation.

"He's still in the ICU. They have him on ventilation and we're still waiting for the FMRI to see what the brain damage is, though." She explains in a haste.

"Yeah, they're probably keeping him sedated so his brain doesn't run out of oxygen. It's standard." He says with a shrug of his shoulders.

Kate looks over from her bureau while hastily packing her clothes before moving into the walk-in closet beside her bedroom, having to push passed Josh to get there. "He could be out for weeks. They don't know yet." She says, grabbing a few choice clothes from hangers.

"So... you're going back up there?" He asks. Kate chooses not to answer verbally, just continues to rummage about in her closet for a moment. "Well, I could probably find someone to take my shifts at the hospital." He says as she's moving back into her bedroom.

Kate looks back at him as she's folding her clothes into her suitcase. "You don't have to do that, Josh." She says, keeping the conversation as light and untroubled as she can.

"You sure? Because-"

"No, really." She says while zipping up the suitcase on her bed. "Besides," She starts again and turns to him, "I'm gonna be busy. I have to look into what happened, and I have to be with his family until this is all over. I could be up there a few weeks."

Josh nods, looking let down. "Well... call me, okay? I miss you."

Kate feels herself stop, her mind reminding her of her relationship obligations, of her renewed romance with him. It's been nice spending this time together ever since he canceled his trip, and if none of this had happened, she'd like to be back here with him if Castle were alright. But he's not, and she has responsibilities, promises to keep. "I'll try, okay? I just have a lot on my mind. And I'm sorry if it seems like I'm rushing out, but... I-"

"You have to go." Josh nods, accepting the situation as it is. "I understand." Kate smiles heavily when Josh tucks his hands into his pockets.

"I'll call you when I can, okay?" She says reassuringly to him as she's lifting her suitcase off her bed. Josh smiles softly when she steps up to him and places a small passing kiss on her cheek, almost an afterthought as she rushes out of her apartment.

* * *

She didn't spend too long in the loft. She packed what she could from Martha's and Alexis' rooms, their luggage now sitting in the truck of Castle's car. She did look around his office briefly, hoping for clues as to what brought him to Vermont, but to no avail at all. Everything was spic, span, and in perfect order. She did grab his laptop, not having the time to try and guess his password. With Castle's writing abilities and wild imagination, it could be quite literally anything.

But she has just one last stop to make before heading back out onto the road. Her emotional resolve doesn't want to take the chance and skip it. So she stands in the parking lot of the church at just after ten, hoping he's still here. Their meetings can run really late, with the members often talking among themselves well after the meeting is actually over. He still attends, but more to support the other members and to keep himself busy than anything else. Once she starts toward the doors of the church, she sees him talking with an older man around his age.

He immediately notices his daughter's presence and shakes the man's hand in front of him. Her barriers are already starting to crack and crumble at the sight of her father, the one person in the world she can lean against openly. He quickly jogs up to meet her, opening his arms up to her and hugging her tenderly. "Hey, sweetie." He says into her ear.

Hugging him back with more force than she remembers hugging him with in a long time, she replies. "Hi, Dad."

Jim pulls back with his hands on her arms. "I heard about Rick on the news. Is he okay?"

She's quick to shake her head and even quicker to let the burning tears start to fall. "No." His concern radiates from his eyes when he takes in her composure, lacking any at all. "I'm not telling his Alexis or Martha that because that's the last thing they need right now, but the truth is no, he's not okay."

"Do you know what happened?"

"If I had to take a guess... someone was after him. I tracked down the guy that dropped him off at the hospital and he told me that Castle looks as if he'd been running for his life, having just crawled out of a car crash that I still haven't seen yet because the police are stonewalling me."

"Oh, Katie..." Jim says, and it warms her heart briefly, hearing that name from someone it sounds natural from.

Kate sucks in a shuttering breath and looks down to the ground. "The doctor said he was barely alive when they got him, Dad. He was about ready to call it before they rushed him into the ER. They still have to see what the brain damage is, but until then... I don't even know if I'll ever see him again.'

Jim lets her regain and wrangle in her emotions for a moment before he's continuing. "I know that tone, Katie." When she looks back up to him with a firm set brow, he's looking over at her with a knowing gaze. "You really don't think this has something to do with your mom's murder, do you?"

"None of the evidence so far points that way." She says, unconvincingly. "But... that's usually a sign that it does." Her father's eyes fall away from her as he nods. He's never accepted her going after it, having to spend his time getting out of the bottle and more time having to get used to worry about her career choice. The clinch in her stomach never fully went away. It's still there, held in place by the image of his beaten and broken body lying in the hospital. "But the police won't let me in on the case. I don't even know where the scene of the crash was, and the car was towed to a police impound lot, which I have no clue how I'm going to get into."

Jim nods once before looking back up to her with a small grin. "Did Rick have full coverage on his car?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he did, but..." When she looks up to her father's knowing and Chesire grin, she smiles warmly. Not wasting any time, she steps forward again and puts her arms back around her father, reveling in the feeling of her father's embrace. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, Katie."

* * *

 _A/N: There was an awesome person that reviewed who for real lives in Brattleboro! But they were a guest reviewer, and I'm sans a phone. If you read this, you can reach me via email, just use my screenname followed by outlook and you'll get to me._

Also, if anyone has a medical background, I could use some pointers on medical jargon. There's only so much a guy can do with an internet search. Thanks whole bunches! :)


	6. Chapter 6

Kate's body is rested, fed, and clad in an outfit of black slacks and a blue peacoat as she walks into the hospital. Martha and Alexis wanted to come with her this morning, to see if his condition has changed at all. But after stopping by their room next to hers to check on them, she told Martha it might be a good idea to pick up some groceries to cook in the kitchen she made sure their room came with. She can't have them eating out for every meal while they're staying here.

She'll start sorting out Alexis' school work later this afternoon. Alexis did mention she might be able to do most of it online, which would ease a lot of the burden from the situation. But Kate still wants to make a round of phone calls to her teachers to let them in on the situation. But this morning, she needs to be on her own. She's been hovering around Martha and Alexis as close as she can, focusing all her energy on worrying about them, that she feels she hasn't spent enough time worrying about her partner. She's been so focused on their father and son, she hasn't really thought about her partner.

Someone wanted to kill her partner, her friend, and she's going to find out who. But she has to do something she's only done before when her partner is by her side to do it with her; go rogue.

She has too many questions with not enough ways to get answers, too many holes to fill with not enough things to put there, and too many responsibilities that she has to keep up with to do what she normally does when she's faced with this sort of challenge. She can't afford to just throw everything else out the window and dedicate 100% of her time and energy to chasing this down. Otherwise, she might have actually made some headway.

She now has to worry about Alexis, making sure she's taken care of and that she's going to come out of this alright. She has to worry about Martha, making sure she's not losing her mind with worry of her own about her son's health and her granddaughter's well being. And to top all of that off, she has to worry if she'll ever see the man who's come to be so much a part of her life, it didn't even start hitting her just how much that was until this morning. She couldn't even stand to get herself her usual coffee order, because if she was handed that cup and took that first familiar sip and didn't see that proud smirk of his as she did with the past thousand familiar sips, it would feel like a betrayal.

So, she walks through the doors to the ICU for another time and heads down the hall and into his room, where he lay, still the same heart-wrenching sight as before. She knew it would be hard this time, not having Alexis or Martha to fall back on and distract herself with. Now, it's just her and him. And with the same feeling that thickened the air when they were normal, the uncomfortable comfort.

Kate slides the door closed behind her and slowly paces her way around the foot of his bed, not being able to tear her eyes away from the broken body that once belonged to her partner. Kate stops at his bedside, watching for any movement of his body at all, but all she gets is the sound of the ventilator. His bandages around his shoulders, face, and head are fresh. But when her eyes rove over him again, she notices that he looks so weak. He'd hate being in this condition if he were awake. He'd be a constant nag about it, especially being trapped in this bed like this.

Her eyes look down to his arm, lying just below the railing of his hospital bed. Physical touch between them is pretty much forbidden, save for a few illicit incidents. He may be an annoying child, always poking through her things and personal property, but she has to admit that he's always kept a respectful distance... if the occasion called for otherwise.

Kate blinks her eyes hard and physically shakes the thoughts away. But when she opens her eyes again and looks down at his arm, she's pulling her hand out of her pocket and gently laying it down against his skin, hoping by some miracle, he's feeling it. Her thumb starts softly petting his arm in a slow, tender motion back and forth. She's never missed someone more than she does now.

"Now's usually the time when you'd say something wildly inappropriate and poorly timed, Castle."

She feels herself hurt when she knows she's waiting for a reply, but hurts even more when she doesn't get it. He needs to come back. He could have left in a lot of ways... but not like this.

Once she hears the door opening, her hand flies off his arm and back into the pocket of her peacoat while she takes a sizable step back, the bed now separating her from the door to his room. "Alright, Mr. Castle. Let's get-" The slightly nasally female voice of the stout blonde nurse stops in the doorway. "Oh," She begins, looking wide-eyed and surprised at Kate's presence, "I-I didn't realize someone was in here."

Kate gives her a small smile and nods, staying quiet.

"I just needed to check his readings." The nurse says and starts into the room.

Kate nods and looks down to the floor. "Go ahead." She says.

The nurse steps up to the machinery keeping her partner alive, but keeps giving her off-handed glances over shoulder, eyeing both her and her partner with equal amounts of curiosity. "Can I... ask you how you're related to the patient?" The nurse asks, turning to point a finger down at Castle and looking over at Kate.

"I'm not, he's my partner." She says, waving a hand toward him before stuffing it back into her pocket. "I'm Detective Kate-"

"Kate Beckett?" The nurse asks, sounding all too pleased and almost giddy, a large smile starting to sneak onto her face.

Kate's brow furrows and she feels herself get tense. "Yes, how did you know that?"

"Oh-my-god, oh my god, oh my god..." The nurse says breathlessly, "I can't believe I'm actually meeting the real-life Nikki Heat."

 _Well... that's never happened before._ "I'm sorry?" She asks, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes, watching as the nurse starts to have a slight panic attack of glee.

"Whe-when Richard Castle was brought in, I thought I'd seen everything. Now I'm meeting the woman who inspired Nikki Heat."

And after a moment, Kate realizes what's unfolding before her. Kate cranes her neck and nods. "You must be the nurse that recognized Castle."

"Yes! Uh..." The nurse stops to calm herself and steps in front of Kate, taking a deep breath but still smiling widely. "Yeah, that was me. I'm just- a _huge_ fan of Mr. Castle's books. I've read all of them I don't know how many times. He's just the best in the biz."

Kate nods, letting the conversation fall away as she gazes back over to her partner. _He'd be having a field day with this broad._

"So, uh..." The nurse starts again, "What can I do for you? I-I'm- Tina, by the way."

Kate looks back up to the nurse, then pans the room. "Do you have the clothes he was wearing when he was brought in? They might-"

"Yes, of course!" Tina says and spins around to the corner of the room. "You have to analyze them for clues like fingerprints or foreign DNA and things like that, because it's evidence. Yeah, they're all right here." She says and hands her two large plastic bags.

Kate takes the bags and pulls two blue nitrile gloves from the box on the table against the wall, then opens the bags, feeling too watched by Tina. Kate pulls out his shoes first, crusted with dried mud, pine needles, and blood. Then his pants, seeing the large tear in the left leg where the gash is on his leg, going all the way up to the knee. Then lastly, he pulls out his purple shirt. _He looks so good in purple,_ the thought shoots into her brain as she holds the fabric in her hands.

When her finger pokes through the hole in the back of the right shoulder of the shirt, she looks closely at the bullet hole. "Looks like a nine millimeter." She says, finding the hole in the front of the shirt where the bullet exited the body. "The bullet tumbled as it entered the body. This hole is misshaped."

"Yeah, I heard the gunshot wound was pretty tough to fix." Tina blabbers from behind her as Kate continues to examine his clothing.

Still holding his shirt, Kate looks over the contents of the bags, then back over to Tina, who smiles. "This was all he had on him?"

"Yep." Tina nods, pursing her lips. "No cell phone or wallet. You think someone robbed him?"

"Tina," Kate starts, putting a shift in her tone, "there's no stitching in his clothing or note in his pockets." Kate says, looking Tina in the eyes. "How'd you know who his emergency contact was?" She asks the question casually, but still glares at Tina, who isn't getting the hint.

So Tina simples and wags her finger at Kate. "Funny story! I heard Richard Castle in an interview a while back, and he said that if he was _ever_ in an emergency to never call his mother. I remember because he looked directly at the camera and said to call..." When Tina meets Kate's eyes and sees Kate is giving her a deathly stare, Tina's smile falls quickly off her face and her excited, lit-up eyes dilate, "to call Detective Kate Beckett... o-of the New York City Police Department. I-it was... it was really funny." She says, letting a nervous chuckle escape her.

Kate takes a slow, challenging step forward, narrowing her eyes. "And my number? How'd you get that?"

"I-I..." Tina says, sounding terrified and small, "I called the NYPD Twelfth Precinct tip line. I said I had information on a case and needed to speak with the lead detective. I-I convinced the guy to patch us through to you, a-and he did, so..."

When Kate takes another step forward, staring directly at Tina, she sees a scared, frightened tear leak out of the nurse's eye. "How'd you know what precinct I work for, Tina?"

Tina's lips tremble as she stares back to Kate. "The Richard Castle fan forum website. Detective Kate Beckett of the Twelfth Precinct, youngest ever to make Detective and holder of the highest case closure rate in the NYPD, and... voted the second sexiest crime fighter in New York by the online Richard Castle crime fighter club." She answers in a small, scared whisper and gulps. "Number one was Richard Castle."

Kate lets out a small sigh of resolve and nods her head, giving Tina room to breathe and looks back down to the small hole in Castle's shirt.

"I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I was just trying to help, I mean... _the_ Richard Castle gets dropped off and no one knows who he is and no one knows who to call, so-"

"You thought you could help." Kate finishes for her, looking back up to the scared nurse with a much softer gaze. "Don't worry, Tina. You did. I'm sorry for the third degree, but that's my partner lying in that bed over there." She says with a nod over to him and looks back down to his shirt, stained and crusty with dried blood, her partner's blood. "If he went through all this and still got that far away from the crash site, he must have been desperate to get away." She thinks out loud while folding the shirt back up and setting it back down.

"So, I'm not in trouble?" Tina asks.

Kate pulls her gloves off and sighs. "No, Tina, you're not. But... I would suggest you request your rounds be changed. I don't want you getting in trouble for favoring him over the other patients because you're a fan, okay?"

Tina looks away, swats at her tear ducts with her palm and heads for the door.

"And by the way," Kate stops her at the door, "he didn't beat me, it was a tie."

* * *

After a few more minutes spent in the ICU, Kate heads back to her hotel room.

She's never met that crazed a fan of his before. But, after all, Castle is a great writer. And with Castle, it's pretty easy to separate the art from the artist. Sometimes, he acts as if the writer and the man aren't even the same person, like there's no possible way words like that can come from him. Then there's times when he surprises her. It's become less surprising as time has passed, but lately, when she reads his work, she can hear him narrate with that deep rumble his voice has.

But now, sitting at the table in her hotel room, she stares frustratingly at his laptop screen.

She can hear Alexis and Martha talking in the room next door. She wants to be able to ask for their help in solving this riddle, but she doesn't want to admit to digging through Castle's computer. This is his personal laptop, his own private computer... that he has password protected.

She doesn't really have much of a choice. She still has no clue what brought him up here, the impound lot doesn't open for another hour, and she needs to get somewhere on this case. Putting her fingers to the keyboard, she types in her first idea. _Alexis._

No result.

She then tries _Harper,_ Alexis' middle name, but with no result. _Nikki, NikkiHeat, BlawnPawn, NakedHeat, NakedNikki,_ all coming up incorrect. After trying _Castle_ out of maddening frustration with still no progress, she pushes the laptop back and throws herself back into her chair. But after a while, she starts getting a thought. And if she's right, she knows full well she isn't prepared for the feeling it will give her. She leans forward and puts her fingers gingerly over the keyboard again, typing out slowly the word _Beckett,_ and hitting enter.

The screen changes and she's shown a picture of him, Alexis, and Martha, all smiling for a family photo. Her heart leaps into her throat and she can feel her arms tighten with nerves, twisting her stomach with anxiety and a swath of denials and playoffs that it was nothing. She's in, she got what she needed, she chooses to leave it there. She pulls her chair into the table a bit more and straightens her back, looking over the icons. The first thing she goes for is his internet icon, looking through his recent searches. And after finding 'what happens when your daughter beats you', 'were dragons real', she comes across a search for 'missing persons near Edgewyck 1986'.

The last one draws her attention and she clicks, pulling up nothing but ads for Edgewyck Academy and articles about how highly recommended the school is.

"Who went missing?" She mutters to herself.

She clicks out of the internet after ten minutes of searching through the topic and finding nothing. But when she goes back to his desktop, the folder labeled ' _Journals'_ draws her eye. Her finger moves the cursor over the folder, but everything else pulls her away, sitting back and taking her hands off his laptop. _It's a complete invasion. He'd hate me for it. I promised to look after Alexis if this ever happened, not to go reading his journal._

When the voices from next to drift through the wall, the violent image of him lying in the hospital flashes in her mind. And now that she's held his clothes in her hands, she can picture him still wearing them, covered in blood and pain, crying out for help from anyone that can offer it. Castle was onto something, something that someone was willing to kill him to keep hidden.

She clicks and the folder opens, seeing a long list of word documents, all labeled with dates. The first one is labeled ' _Jan_ _. 24, 2011'._ The date sounds like it should seem familiar, but she doesn't have time to rummage through her memories to pull out why. Not bothering with reserve, she opens the document and begins to read.

 _I haven't really felt the need to keep a journal for a long time. At least not since I got sent to Edgewyck. I always had trouble organizing my thoughts. Damian was the one who first suggested it and I remember it helped. So I thought I'd give it a shot for this._

She stops reading briefly when she remembers how broken and betrayed he was when he found out that the first real person to believe in him turned out to be just another fraud. She shoves the thought aside, along with the others, and continues.

 _I know I have no right to be having these kinds of thoughts. It's hard for me to think about for more than a few minutes. It's easier when we're together and I can shut out the reality of the situation by distracting myself. But at the end of the day, I have to see the reality as it is. I know that I'll never know her as well as I like to say I do, and probably even less that she says I do. I've met him, all of once. But it was in the way he said it. "She never mentioned me?" He asked, as if he's surprised that she wasn't spouting it from the hilltops._

 _I know it would be easy for me to say that she's just not happy with Josh._

Kate's breath hitches when the journal finally puts his ramblings into context. Her heart already knew, but her mind being forced to read it...

 _But I'm not in a place to make that judgment. Her happiness is her's to come by. And if her and Josh really are good together, then at some point, I have to come to grips with it. After all, I think I know what type of guy she's drawn to. Career driven, headstrong, selfless, focused, ambitious. There's no reason she wouldn't love Josh. He seems to hit all the marks. I care about her, and I want to see her happy. And if making sure she has that means letting her be with him, then I don't really have a choice. I know it's easy to magnify the problems they have. I could do that all day, picking apart every little facial expression and body language tell till I'm blue in the face, but what the hell does my opinion on this subject matter?_

 _I have two divorces under my belt. I'm probably the last person she should be taking relationship advice from, and the last person she'd ask expecting an honest answer. My own fault for being the clown I guess._

 _I'm twisted up over this enough. This hasn't helped me at all. But all I know for sure is this. We're never going to talk about that kiss we shared tonight._

Kate slams the laptop closed with a slap, but the sound of the computer slamming closed is nothing compared to her heart.

Which is pounding just as hard as it did the night he kissed her.


	7. Chapter 7

She's forcing herself to focus on other matters now.

She knows Martha and Alexis got a call from the hospital right as she was leaving for the impound lot. She dropped them off and said she would be back as soon as she can. They had just taken Castle in for a full body MRI and the doctor's wanted them there for the preliminary results. But after this morning, she's compartmentalizing her work. This is a case, she has a job to do, a friend of her's is in danger, and she needs to find out what happened. That's what she's doing here.

Stopped outside the chain link fence, she looks into the small office at the end of a small dirt driveway that cuts off the paved road that's on the outskirts of the city limits. Kate looks up down the road, a long stretch of empty highway, encased in dense woods and trees, shadowing the road with wilderness. She's been sitting here for close to ten minutes and hasn't seen a single car pass by. It's no wonder he was out here for this long. It's just like Earl said; if this road is this empty, it's a miracle that he was alive at all. She still has no idea when the crash happened, or what it looked like. But that's why she's here.

With a deep breath, Kate flings the door to Castle's silver Lexus open and makes her way down the dirt driveway of the impound lot, briefly taking a long breath of the fresh, mid-spring air, and her ears enjoying the sound of nothing but the wind waving against the tops of the trees. She opens the door to the office and is greeted by another older man, late fifties at the earliest, looking somewhat overweight and unkempt. "What can I do you for?" He asks, standing up from a chair in front of his computer behind the desk.

Kate sends him a smile, trying to be her most charming and as modestly sexy as she can be without giving herself away. "Hi, I'm from Allstate. I'm here to look at the Red Ferrari that was brought in a few days ago. I need to get pictures for the claim."

"Ah," The clerk says and steps around the desk and motions his hand out the side door. "Right this way."

 _Not even asking for ID? This place must not see a lot of this kind of thing,_ she thinks as he shows her outside. The clerk lets Kate follow him out into the yard, where it's relatively empty compared to the impound lots in New York. There's a few broken down Crown Vic's, a line of old dusty SUV's and pickups against one side, with a smashed, crumpled, and torn pile of metal that was once Castle's favorite Red Ferrari, sitting off to the right next to a Honda Civic with a flat tire.

"This is it?" She asks, letting her pass in front of him.

"Yep," The clerk says and crosses his arm, shaking his head in disappointment. "Shame," He says as Kate starts slowly toward the car, "bet it was a beaut before the crash."

"It was," Kate mutters, coming up to what was once the driver's side. She can still see a large blood stain on the white interior where he cut his leg. It's... it's too big to be Castle's blood. That can't be the blood of her partner having dried on the inside of this car. He couldn't have gone through all this. "Have the police come by at all?" She asks the clerk as she paces by the crumpled front end. It's smashed in, with the hood crumpled and folded inward.

"One guy did, Officer Thomas. Looked it over for about five minutes before he left."

Kate nods, _they only send one officer for paperwork reasons._ "It looks like he rolled it." She says, looking over the top. She then comes around to the passenger side, picking pieces of gravel, dirt, and grass from the top of the windshield frame. "So, what made him get out and run then?"

After a moment of staring intensely at the car, she steps back and pulls out her phone, taking photos from all angles until she reaches the rear end. She snaps a photo of it before going to the side and taking a picture of the blood stain on the door, which is dented and opened. She then takes a photo of the interior, but notices something. She leans in and looks down at the shifter. It looks like it's in gear... a high gear.

"He was all the way in sixth." She says in shock. _He was running from someone... really fast._

"Sixth gear?" The clerk asks from his spot standing a few feet away from the pile of metal. "How fast is that in one of these?"

"From what I remember?" Kate says while taking a step back. "Well over 170."

The clerk whistles in sheer amazement, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "And they say the guy survived?"

Kate's heart clutches when he asks that. Whatever Castle got himself into, he was scared, afraid for his life, and alone... without his partner there to save him. Kate turns away from the clerk while she bats her burning eyes away and then turns back to him, physically composed as she takes another look at the rear end. The way it's smashed, it seems to perfect. Every other end is dented irregularly and misshapen from having crashed or rolled. But the rear end...

"He was rammed." She says in a firm voice, staring at the perfect dents in the rear end.

"How can you tell?" The clerk asks as she steps in front of the rear end.

She puts her fingers into the two vertical dents that parallel each other, then tee off to one single horizontal line going across. "These markings are too symmetrical to have come from the crash. These dents were made by someone with a grill on their front end."

"A grill?" The clerk asks her, seeming puzzled. "Like..."

Kate looks over her shoulder, a piece of the puzzle having fallen into place. "Like the kind you'd find on a police car."

* * *

Kate departed from the impound lot as quickly as she could after the break she caught in the case. She didn't want the clerk asking any more questions then he already was. She thanked him with a smile and walked as fast as she could back to the car, then drove down the road to the scene of the crash. She found it pretty easily by the sight of chunks of bright red plastic and glass lying in the grass next to the side of the road, but not much else. If he was going fast enough to warrant being in sixth gear, he could have been rammed miles down the road from here.

But she stops the car nonetheless and pulls off, getting out with her foot stepping on a piece of side paneling from Castle's red Ferrari.

She looks down the road, seeing debris scattered for a good twenty or thirty feet. The road is straight and mostly deserted. There's no reason that Castle would have trouble keeping control of the car, he shouldn't have crashed even if he was running from someone. If he was able to get all the way to sixth gear, he was trying to outrun whoever it was that rammed him, police or not. If this is a cop, that makes for a whole other set of problems that makes this whole situation a lot more dangerous. No wonder they want this written off. But motive, she still has no motive for any of this.

Kate examines the scene again, slowly walking through the debris field that's scattered along the side of the road, bits of metal, shards of plastic, and glass lying in the grass next to the woods. And it isn't until she's walking back that she realizes something. She does a quick double take along the line of debris, then the impression in the grass and the trees where his car landed and sees it. "He was coming from the other direction."

This road heads west out of town. There's not much for miles in that direction. Something must have taken him in that direction to begin with. _But what?_

She can hear him ask, as if he's standing right here next to her. This is where Castle shined. Where she's just beginning to gather evidence and piece together the victim's life and how they ended up dead, he would take the mismatched pieces and weave and ravle a story with it. But she was trained as a detective. She can't see how any of this fits. Castle runs all the way here for something in a sports car, but he was heading back into town when he crashed, with evidence that he was rammed by a police car, with no phone or wallet on him... running for his life, scared, probably calling out for her help.

Kate stops when she in front of his Lexus, a wave of grief and heartache poisoning her blood. She needs her partner right now.

 _I care about her, and I want to see her happy._

Her heart shutters inside her chest as she struggles to breathe. _I care about you too, Castle._ _You could have called me._ Her phone going off breaks her out of the whirlpool of emotions she's getting sucked in by, luckily. She breathes in a congested breath and blinks away another set of tears, catching them before the fall from her lashes, and pulls her phone out, seeing she's received a text from Alexis. The doctor just gave them the preliminary results of the MRI, and they need her there. And an unread text from Josh she had received some time ago while she was driving.

' _So are you alright? We didn't get to talk much before you left last night.'_

Kate feels herself stop. She does have relationship obligations to keep. He should at least know that she's okay. ' _Yeah, I'm fine. Promise.'_

Kate sits back down behind the wheel and gets a reply once the key is in the ignition. ' _Okay, I'm here if you need me.'_

With that, she quickly flips a u-turn and heads back to the hospital and into the ICU, where Alexis and Martha are still conversing with the doctor outside his room. She keeps her eyes trained on them, instead of looking past them and into his hospital room. She needs to stay focused right now. She can't afford to be thinking about other things right now.

"What's going on?" Kate asks, announcing her arrival. "I thought you wouldn't get the results back until tomorrow."

The doctor nods and puts one hand into his lab coat as Kate comes to stand next to Alexis, whom she can feel is starting to lean closer into her. "Well, we won't be sure until then, but we may have to go back in and do another surgery. He's still losing blood from somewhere, and we can't take him off the ventilator until we fix it. I have assured them that I will contact you as soon as we have the results back. Until then, we can't be entirely sure. My hope was to see some improvement in his condition if we kept him sedated, but his blood pressure isn't getting any better."

When the doctor tells them that, Kate feels Alexis cling to Kate's arm, grabbing her by the sleeve and wrapping her arm around hers. It takes Kate by surprise, but something about the gesture, even if she's doing it unawares, warms her heart. It's a level of emotional trust she probably hasn't even reached with her father yet, but she remembers this feeling. If she had someone to cling to during times like this, or at least felt like she had someone, it would have made a world of difference. Accepting it, Kate puts a hand on top of Alexis', letting the teen know that she's here.

"But my hopes are still high." The doctor tells them, his eyes softening as his tone lifts. "He's resilient, that's for sure. He survived this long, I'm sure he'll get through this too." He says with a smile and turns with his clipboard back down the hall.

Alexis nods and lets Kate's arm go, letting her eyes fall back down to the floor as Martha turns to them. "Uh..." She groans emotionally, pinching her forehead and putting a hand on her waist, "another surgery?"

"He'll come out of it, Martha." Kate says, a knee-jerk reaction of comfort. Maybe it's more of her denial that it could really end like this. "Those were just the preliminary results. I'm sure he'll be fine."

Alexis nods again and crosses her arms protectively across herself. "Did you find his car?"

Kate looks up cautiously to her and nods slowly, "Yeah."

"Did you find anything?" Martha asks.

Kate looks up to Martha, being eyes by both of them for answers, but she can't talk about it. Not here, at least. "I still have to make sense of it, I'll tell you as soon as I have it all down." When she sees Alexis' brow start to knit, she puts her hand on the teen's arm. "I promise."

* * *

 _-Rammed from behind with grill_. The picture is captioned, ' _police cruiser?'_ it reads just below that.

Written out on the whiteboard she picked up this afternoon, she has written out all the events she has. He was there when Martha left the loft at nine, and with traffic, it would have taken him at least until one in the afternoon to get here, if he obeyed the speed limit. Conservatively, maybe noon if he kept it in low fifth instead of fourth gear. But he was coming back into town, so he was on his way back from somewhere.

 _Edgewyck?_ She has written out below the photo of his car. It's just an hour away, it's possible he could have been on his way back. But why Edgewyck? Castle hasn't mentioned his time in boarding school since they went out for a drink to the haunt after putting Westlake under arrest, and from what she vaguely remembers, most of it was how he just spent most of his time writing and how Damian was the first real person to ever believe in him, have faith in him as a person. She remembers having the thought, but downing it with a shot of vodka. She believes in him.

Her eyes drift guiltily back to his open laptop that she has sitting on the table as the thought hits her. It was a complete violation. If he'd did that to her, she'd be more than furious with him. Those were his private thoughts, his own musings that were meant to stay inside of his own mind. Her needing help on an investigation doesn't change that. He trusts her and she can't betray that again. Stamping out any temptation, she closes his laptop just as a knock is coming on her door.

She pads across her hotel room and opens the door to Martha. "Hey, Martha. What is it?" She asks.

Martha seems to smile, "Well, I was just in the process of making dinner for myself and Alexis and was wondering if you'd grace us with your presence."

Kate smiles and starts out of her hotel room, "I'd love to."

Martha smiles fully and sashays into their hotel room, where she has a slew of ingredients laid out on the counter of their hotel room. Alexis's school work and laptop are on the bed closest to the window, and both their suitcases and luggage are sitting at the feet of their beds. Martha heads back into the kitchenette as Kate is looking around their hotel room.

"Where's Alexis?" Kate asks, not seeing her.

"Ah," Martha says and points with a plastic stirring spoon out to the balcony.

Kate nods, starting to get worried that she's stirring out there by herself. She remembers what she felt when she used to do that. Kate quickly makes her way through the hotel room and pulls open the sliding glass door, seeing Alexis in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans leaned down against the railing on her arms. "Hey," Kate says in a friendly tone. She'd hoped that she's earned the girl's trust, at least on some of an emotional level after what they've gone through with her father.

"Hey," Alexis responds in a low voice.

"Something wrong?" She asks, coming to stand next to her and leaning down on her forearms with her.

"No, just..." She says, looking down at her cell phone in her hand. "Nothing."

Kate looks between Alexis and the phone, gauging her expression. "You waiting for something?"

Alexis sighs and puts her phone back into her pocket. "I guess not."

Kate smiles and looks out onto the quiet town the balcony overlooks. "It's Ashely, isn't it?" She asks in a knowing voice. She knows the feeling and the look of a teenage girl with boyfriend problems. It's been all too familiar in her life. Kate can feel herself grin, knowing the answer. Alexis is slow to nod, but she looks back at Kate, giving her a deadpan look in frustration. "What's up?"

Alexis shakes her head to herself before beginning, "Nothing, really. I mean, I... I told him that I just needed some time to work through things with everything going on with my dad, and-"

"And let me guess," Kate says with a Chesire grin trying to pull itself back. "He listened."

"It seems like it," She says in a low, warning tone. Kate lets Alexis get the words out on her own, letting her work through it by herself until she has an opportunity. "I mean, he's cute. He's smart, gets good grades, he's looking to get into Stanford for early admission, he's sweet. And I know Dad likes him."

Kate lets out a sigh despite herself and looks back over to Alexis. "Trust me, Alexis. Cute and successful guys come and go all the time." That earns her Alexis eyes, eager to hear what the woman has to say. "It may seem right at the time. He may... hit all the right marks. You may feel like you're supposed to love him. But there's something still missing. And eventually, you'll find that he may not have something you really need in the end."

Kate can feel Alexis' eyes still on her, even as her's have fallen away down into the lights of the town. "What's that?"

"Someone who's there. Even when you don't ask them to be. Even when you tell them not to be. Because... in the end, they know that you just... need someone. Even if it is just to remind yourself that you don't have to do it alone. And to remind you that they're there when you need them." Kate says, letting her eyes stare into space. "Always."

Kate waits for her own cell phone to go off, for a reply to come from the text she'd sent this morning, but after waiting for a moment, she feels her heart sink when it never does.

* * *

 _A/N: I had a few people leave reviews about being in the the medical field and PMed them, but they never got back to me. Let me know if I got anything wrong. Until then, let me know._

 _A/N2: To address a few reviews I've gotten, I know that I included a text from Josh earlier in the chapter, and I know how I wrote Kate in the last of the chapter. I'm well aware. But think about it. Would Castle really leave it at that? ;)_


	8. Chapter 8

The night, surprisingly, went by quickly for her. It was a night that didn't catch her off guard, but snuck around it.

Martha had obviously been having trouble trying to handle cooking an entire meal suitable for the three of them, although preparing a meal suitable for consumption at all seemed a daunting task for her. After returning inside with Alexis, Kate had stepped in, much to Martha's insistence that she had it handled, and managed to salvage their dinner. And before she even realizes it, she's sitting around the small dining table in their hotel room, having finished their plates some time ago, all their worries being the furthest thing from any of their minds. Martha had kept most of the conversation with tales from Rick's childhood, reinforcing the notion she's had for some time that no matter the obstacle he hurdles, he will always remain the same basic person at the core.

A lifelong child who has more heart than he knows what to do with.

It's a night that they needed, most of all Kate. Just a slight reminder that they all have something at stake being here, they all have someone they care about on the line. Castle has people that depend on him, who won't accept a reality, a world, that doesn't have him in it. She's different, but doesn't tell them that. She knows what it's like to lose someone like that in your life. She's experienced it all before. Part of her would like to think she's prepared for the event, but knows for that to happen, she'd have to mourn the loss before accepting it. She can't do that yet.

After Martha demanding that Kate let them handle what's left of the dishes, she bids the women good night and gives them the first honest smile she's felt she's given anyone in a long time. It feels nice to be able to smile honestly. It's less draining, takes less emotionally when it's real, almost nothing. It drains more and more energy when she has to fake it for the sake of other people's dependency on a stable person, and she's had to fake it a lot lately.

Kate opens the door and heads outside, pausing to take in a long, refreshing breath of the cool night air of the small Vermont town. Despite the circumstances, she's starting to like it here. It amazes her sometimes at how differently people can live their lives. Here, there's no constant noise, no congestion, no traffic, no brake dust, no grime... it's just peaceful.

Was.

When she steps toward her own hotel door, she notices something that makes her stop. Looking down to the parking lot across the street, she sees it again; a set of headlights flashing in quick, double-timed intervals. When the lights flash at her a third time, she notices quickly that they're the headlights of a police cruiser. Her protective instinct is kicked on as her muscles ready themselves for immediate action. She didn't bother to arm herself, her Kahr is still sitting in the night table drawer.

Nevertheless, she quickly hops down the stairs and starts across the parking lot, keeping herself close to their car for quick cover if she needs it. The evidence in this case is looking more and more like a conspiracy. _Castle would go crazy if he weren't the victim on this,_ she thinks as her fingers are forced to let go of the Lexus' rear end. But she stops briefly when she sees that the officer sitting inside the police cruiser is the same officer that told her where to find Earl, the one person in this town who seems to be out to help her figure all this out.

She puts a quickness in her stride, halfway jogging across the street and over to the car, putting herself down in his passenger seat. "Why are you here?" She demands, wanting to get to the point quickly.

The young officer lets out a sigh and looks down to his lap sadly. "The captain's going to make his announcement tomorrow afternoon."

Kate closes the door on her side and presses the officer further. "What announcement?"

"He's ruling what happened to your partner a car-jacking gone wrong." He says, still not meeting her eyes.

But Kate's fury and anger ignite in her system faster than she can temper them. "A _car-jacking?"_ Officer Thomas's jaw clinches tightly, looking as if he's the one in the wrong, but Kate continues anyway. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Look," he says and stops her by lifting his hand, "none of us know what to do here, alright?" He looks over to her finally, fear and nervousness lining his voice. "Most we ever deal with around here is- property damage. Traffic violations, noise complaints, a B and E here and there, but attempted murder?" She's seen this look before, in young officers fresh off the academy's graduation ceremony, not having a clue what they were in for as cadets. Thomas shakes his head and looks back down to his steering wheel. "I've never even _seen_ a murder before."

"What about missing persons?" Kate asks, her tone firm and direct.

Thomas looks over to her curiously, "Missing persons? No, nothing like that. Least not since I've been here. Why?"

Kate sighs and digs her phone out of her pocket, "I have evidence that proves my partner wasn't the victim of an attempted car-jacking gone wrong." She says and shows the officer the photo she took of the Ferrari's rear end. Thomas looks at it, puzzled as to what he's looking at. "Those dents aren't from the crash, he was rammed from behind."

"How's that prove it's not a car-jacking, exactly?"

Kate rolls her eyes and takes her phone back. "What car-jacker in their right mind would damage the car they're after?" When she says that, she can tell the officer is embarrassed at letting that go over his head. "He was rammed by someone who has a grill on their front end." She says, motioning to the front end of his police cruiser with her phone.

"Wait, you think a cop did this?!" He practically shouts at her.

"Why else would your captain want it written off so badly other than to protect one of his officers?" She accuses.

"It's not like that." He says, lifting his hand to disengage her again. "If it was anyone else, we might have more room to look into it. You're partner being a famous writer isn't helping. The mayor is breathing down our necks to give the people of this town assurance that things like this don't happen here, and the captain's way of doing that is to not drag out the investigation and get it wrapped up as fast as he can. They don't want us branded the town that lets famous writers get run off the road. They want all this out of the news cycle, that's all."

"Meanwhile, you let a teenage girl go to bed every night not knowing who it was that tried to kill her father or why. And trust me, Officer, knowing why _matters_. You know they still don't know if he's going to wake up yet? You really want that on your conscience, Officer?"

"Why do you think I'm here?!" He pleads, looking over to her with the same naive fear and quivering nervousness. Thomas shakes his head again and lets out a tightly wound sigh. "Look, I'm like a lot of people around here. I moved down here from Boston because I thought it'd be a good place to raise my two-year-old little boy. I became a cop here because it's a nice quiet job. We're not like you New York cops, alright? We like the quiet days around here, we're not all itching to get the next bad guy. But what kind of dad am I if I let my kid grow up thinking I let whoever did this go free because I didn't do my part?"

Kate keeps the officer's gaze for a minute, gauging his honesty. After a moment of finding his motivations that of someone who wants to do the right thing, but doesn't know where to begin, she nods. "What do you know about Edgewyck Academy?"

Officer Thomas gives her another puzzled look before shrugging his shoulders. "It's a boarding school about an hour away. Why?"

"You ever hear anything happening at the school? Recently maybe?"

"No. Like I said, this town is quiet and the mayor wants to keep it that way. Why are you asking about this, anyway?"

"Because I have reason to believe my partner may have been on his way back from Edgewyck when he was rammed. Whatever he found there was enough to warrant someone wanting to kill him." She explains, her whiteboard up in her hotel room being pictured in her mind. "You've never heard of anything going on there?"

"We've gotten a phone call or two from kids causing trouble out in the woods once in a while. But never anything as serious as murder."

Kate lets out a frustrated breath and looks out her window. She's not getting any answers. She's going to have to pay the school a visit. Chances are they handle incidents in house as much as possible. But first, she has to keep the captain from writing this case off. Given this chance, she could use at least someone on her side who actually has a little bit of pull on the police force in town. "Is there any way your captain will listen to you on this?"

Officer Thomas shrugs his shoulders slightly, "I've only been here a year and a half. But he wants what's best for the town, I know that much."

"Well, what's worse? Letting a killer run free in your town or protecting the town by putting him behind bars?"

That gives Thomas pause and after a moment, his eyes drift shut and he shakes his head, disgruntled. "What can I do?"

"Come by the hospital tomorrow afternoon. I'll have everything you need."

* * *

They all stand in the waiting area of the ICU, in further from the waiting area outside the ER, waiting for the doctor to come back from surgery.

It's very late in the afternoon, four-fifteen last Kate checked. They finally got the results back from the MRI and wanted to get him into surgery as soon as they could. Now, once again, they sit with agonizing patience for the sight of the doctor coming back with any news at all. And it's the same as before, with Alexis and Martha sitting next to each other in chairs with Martha offering the girl peripheral support every so often, and Kate pacing cross-armed in front of them. Kate checks her dad's watch again and sees it's now half passed and grits her teeth. The captain was set to make his announcement at five in time for the evening news.

Where the hell is Thomas?

Luckily, right as the thought is in her mind, she sees the young officer come into the ICU from down the hall, his thumbs in his belt, in full uniform and jacket. _Finally,_ she thinks bitterly and grabs her folder off the seat next to Alexis and makes her way down the hall to meet him right outside of Castle's room. "Hey, sorry I'm late."

"Here," she says and pulls out the first photo from her folder, "this is of his rear end. I've circled all the areas that are evidence. And this," she says, handing him another photo even as he's still researching the first one she gave him, "is of the crash site. You can tell from the debris of the crash and where the car stopped that he was coming back into town, so he was heading east. And this," she says handing him another photo, "is of his shifter. He had it in sixth gear, which in a Ferrari is-"

"Way too fast for a police cruiser. Our Crown Vic's top out at-"

"Right around 150 miles per hour, I know. Something else made him lose control, but I don't know what."

Officer Thomas looks over the photos and is offering an answer as he motions to the pictures in his hands. "I could have been an animal. People hit deer heading out of town all the time, especially this time year. They know when hunting season is over, so they're out in droves lately."

"It's speculation at this point. What matters is someone caught up to him and tried to kill him. And the only thing that my partner has any connection to in Vermont at all is Edgewyck Academy. You tell your captain that the only way he would drive all the way up here in his favorite sports car without telling his family, or even his partner," she continues, pointing at herself, "is if something had him scared. And whatever that was is bad enough for someone to want him dead. And since he's still alive, that means whoever did this could make another attempt on his life or his families lives."

Officer Thomas is staring at her with a saddened furrow in his brow, the photos dangling from his hands. After a moment, he looks past her and over to Alexis and Martha, who are avoiding being caught watching them.

"You can't just write that off." She says between the two of them. "Now go, before you're too late."

He nods and spins on his heel, taking off back down the hall in the other direction. _One obstacle out of the way. At least I have someone on my side in all this,_ she thinks as she turns to face Castle's empty room.

"Kate!" Alexis calls for her.

She quickly turns to see Alexis just getting up from her seat at the sight of the doctor coming back down the hall. Desperate for news of her partner, her legs are jogging back down the hall of the ICU to catch up to them. "So? How'd it go, doctor?" Martha asks.

Kate quickly catches up with them and is standing behind Alexis and Martha as the doctor gives them a nod, Kate's hand finding its way onto Alexis' shoulder. "He did have some internal bleeding leftover from the gunshot and a few bone fragments that broke away from his ribs, but we did fix it. And luckily, from the looks of it, his cardiac output is strong enough so we can take him off the ventilator as soon as his blood pressure is normal."

At that incredible news, Alexis turns to Kate with an emotionally relieved smile and flings her arms around Kate's midsection, and Kate responds naturally by hugging the girl's shoulders with one arm while offering Martha support with the other as she turns to the two of them. "That's incredible, doctor." Martha breathes.

"But," The doctor tempers them, "he still has a substantial amount of healing to do. And we still don't know the full extent of the brain damage yet. So, until we do a brain scan to see exactly what we're dealing with, we're going to have to keep him sedated until we're sure. He still has some-"

"What you're dealing with?" Kate repeats the question, wanting clarity. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, detective, just because his body is starting to heal, doesn't mean his brain is. He did suffer a lot of damage and it did go untreated for far too long for anyone in these circumstances to not-"

"Just tell us!" She demands.

The doctor sighs and lets his eyes drift shut for a minute. She knows that look. "We can't be sure yet, but... worst case, he could end up in a coma."

* * *

 _A/N: Broke 200 reviews earlier than I have with any other stories. Love it! :D_

 _Also, again, if I got anything wrong on the medical front, please let me know either via private messaging me on , or just email me at Possumsoul at outlook. I never hear back from anyone. :(_


	9. Chapter 9

The phone buzzes in her ear, pacing from end to end of her hotel room the next morning.

She's put it off for this long, she can't put it off any longer. She knew making this call would throw her into an undertoe of emotions that she isn't ready for and doesn't have the emotional fortitude to handle right now. But she has to do it. Especially after the events of last night. It was a long night. Too many downs and not nearly enough ups. They had tried and thought his body would be healed enough to handle it. But once they pulled his tube, his vitals started dropping. The staff had called them back and told them that they would need to keep him sedated and on ventilation for at least another week.

But, he's still alive.

After the third ring, the phone she's calling finally answers. "This is Gina." The haunting female voice says, making Kate instantly react with hostility and venom.

But she pulls it back as quick as she can. This isn't about her, or her past surrounding this woman. This is about her partner and his well being, all she is is a guardian. "Hey... Gina," Kate sighs heavily into the phone, pushing her hair back. "It's Kate Beckett, Castle's partner."

"O-oh," Gina stutters, putting a long chasm in the conversation. "What um... what can I do for you, Detective?"

"Well, we got an update from the hospital, and I thought you should probably know." She says, choosing her words all too wisely. Admitting why she has loads of hesitation about speaking to this woman is a bridge she isn't ready to cross yet. She has far too much to deal with as it is trying to keep her own relationship afloat, for whatever it's worth.

"Is Rick going to be alright?" Gina asks quickly.

And what gets her isn't that she calls him Rick, even though it's a level of informality that they themselves have yet to reach, but that she sounds as desperate for an answer as she would be. She swallows against the lump in her throat and tries her best to continue with a steady rhythm. "They had to take him back into surgery last night and thought they had him ready to be taken off the ventilator, but his vitals started to drop right as they did."

"So, what? What did they say?"

Kate nods to herself and turns around in her pacing line across her hotel room. "They're keeping him sedated for at least another week while he heals a bit more before they start weaning him off the ventilator and take him off sedation."

She can hear Gina let out a breath that she can tell is not trying to hide its shake and shutter as she's breathing it into her receiver. And it's a stabbing reminder that she's not the only woman in Castle's life that worries about him, that cares about him and wants the best for him. Her and Castle were married, after all. "Do they know when he'll wake up?"

And it's that question that sends her heart squeezing inside of her chest, hating herself for having to give the woman an honest answer. "They aren't sure yet. They're still waiting for his body to heal, so until then, they uh... they just don't know."

There's a long pause on the other end of the line as Kate stops near the sliding door that leads to the balcony of her hotel room, waiting with very uncomfortable anxiousness for Gina's response. And it's a solid minute or so before Gina is speaking to her again. "Well, uh... what about Alexis? She was really upset when she called me a few days ago."

Kate nods and looks toward the shared wall between her's and his family's room. "She's holding up as best as any seventeen-year-old girl who just lost their dad would be. She needs him back and refuses to leave until she has him."

Gina lets out a sad chuckle, "Yeah, Rick's always been the center of her world." And it's a different perspective, seeing as she would have said the opposite. There are times in the precinct when all he can talk about is his daughter, when he isn't staring at a picture of a murder victim, he's staring at a picture of Alexis on his phone. Alexis is a great girl, in large part because she brings out the best in her dad. "What about Martha? I can't imagine she's handling this too well."

"She's keeping herself as busy as she can manage, which basically means she's driving Alexis crazy instead of Castle." That earns Kate a small laugh, but she's making no illusions as to her relationship with Gina. "But all in all, she's doing better then I expected."

"So, Detective..." Gina shirts the conversation, giving Kate the cue to be even more serious than she has been. "What really happened? Alexis told me he'd been shot, but I was reluctant to give that information to Paula."

"Gina," She says, the name tasting sour on her tongue, "I have reason to believe that Castle found something out, about who or what I don't know yet, but whatever it is, it was bad enough for someone to want to run him off the road and try to kill him."

"Is... are..." She struggles and chokes on words, leaving Kate to continue.

"Now," Kate saves her from trying any further, hoping that she can shed some light on Castle's past. "Did Castle ever mention anything about his time in Edgewyck?"

There's another pause on the other end of the line while Kate waits impatiently. "I'm sorry, Edgewyck?"

Kate nods and turns around to continue pacing back through her hotel room. "Yes, Edgewyck Academy for boys?"

Gina lets out a small sigh, halfway resembling a disheartened chuckle, and answers. "To be honest, Detective Beckett, you probably know more about Rick's past than I do."

"You-" She struggles, cutting herself off from saying _you've got to be kidding me._ "So he never once mentioned his time in boarding school when you two were married?"

"This is the first time I'm ever hearing of it, Detective. I never even knew Rick attended boarding school." Kate feels herself slowly sink down to her bed in shock. How is it possible that she could know more about Richard Castle than a woman he not only married, but felt close enough to to get back together with after divorcing her? "Frankly, most of our marriage was spent on honeymoons and vacations. As much as he could stand to be pulled away from Alexis."

Kate weaves a hand into her hair again and pushes it back as she leans against her thigh with one arm. "Well, I have reason to believe that whatever is going on has something to do with his time at Edgewyck Academy."

She can practically feel Gina nod on the other end of the line, "Well, if anyone can figure it out, I'm sure it's you, Detective Beckett." She says and Beckett can't help but feel annoyed at the platitude, even as Gina is continuing. "Rick is always saying that you're the best."

Kate nods to virtually nobody and continues. "I'm just doing my job."

Gina is silent for a moment before Kate can hear her take in a soiled breath. "Well, you'll call me with any updates on Rick's condition? I... I know we broke up some time ago and our careers put us in the position of having to maintain civility, but... I still care about him."

Kate feels her heart sink, a familiar feeling she can't ignore until it's over with. "Yeah, I will, Gina."

"Thank you, Detective." She says just before the line disconnects.

She lets her phone fall down to the mattress beside her, her heart feeling heavy and cold. She knew making that call and having to have that conversation would drain more emotional energy than she had to spare. But still, she can't help but dwell on that time, that few minutes that felt like a hot, poisonous knife slowly being stuck into her twisted gut just before she thought that she could give it a shot with him. But admitting to that, that she was ready to cross that line with him, even then, would mean admitting that there's probably a reason it hurt as much as it did.

It's always easier to just deny it ever happened and pretend like these feelings don't exist and never have. It hurts less... in the here and now, anyway.

It's times like right now that she needs Castle's childish jokes and inhumane humor to give her something to distract herself with, by rebutting him, calling him out, arguing with him. Alone, being left to stew in her own thoughts, it seems too much. She could, at the very least, really use another voice in the room right now. And before she's aware, her phone is in her hand and is sending a text message to her boyfriend. _'Hey, I'm going to be at least another week, probably more. Just thought I should let you know.'_

Kate stares down at her phone for too long of a minute waiting for his reply to come. But when it doesn't, she sets her phone back down to the bed and lets her eyes drift around her hotel room. Eventually, her eyes fall to his laptop, sitting closed on the table. She's fought temptation pretty valiantly lately. Those journals are his private thoughts and he entrusted them to stay that way, no matter what she's going through, missing him more than she's probably supposed to. Then her eyes go to the whiteboard sitting in front of the TV, largely blank and void of crucial details compared to what it would look like if she had her partner here.

After deciding that she's stirred enough, Kate stands up from her bed and heads out the door. She stops to take in another long, refreshing breath of the cool, clean air and stands motionless until she feels the breeze of a cool blue-skyed spring nuzzle her skin. She can't really blame them for wanting to keep this town peaceful and quiet. After a long moment letting her mind drift off into nowhere, she opens the door to Alexis' and Martha's room, where Alexis is sitting at the table with her laptop open doing her school work, and Martha is in the shower at the sound of the water running.

"Morning, Beckett." Alexis says with a heavy smile after the rollercoaster of last night.

"G'morning." She greets and closes the door behind her. "I just got off the phone with Gina. She didn't know anything about your dad's time at Edgewyck."

Alexis looks up with a confused knit in her brow, "Really?"

"Yeah," Kate answers on a sigh, sitting down in the chair across from her, "she said she didn't even know he attended boarding school growing up, so... back to square one until I can make it down there today."

"I can come, if you want." Alexis shrugs casually and looks back down to her laptop.

Kate looks over to the girl, surprised at her generous offer. "You don't have to, Alexis."

"No, I could use the out, actually." She rebuts, looking over her shoulder sideways, back toward the closed door to the bathroom. "Gram wants to take me shopping this afternoon to take some of the stress off." She says, not trying to hide her annoyance.

"Why don't you want to go? That sounds like fun."

Alexis shakes her head and looks back down to her notebook. "I don't know. With Dad in the hospital fighting for his life... you just have to be in the mood for that kind of thing, that's all. I don't have the heart to tell her I just don't want to go, so..." She trails off.

And Kate, understanding the girl's mindset, silently agrees with a quick nod of her head as she crosses one leg over the other. "So, is there anyone else you want me to call? Like your mom, maybe?"

Alexis scoffs, one which rivals even the scoffs she gives her partner, and doesn't move her eyes away from her school work. "I think she'd have to care, first."

"Oh, come on, Alexis." Kate argues, a friendly tone coming across more naturally than she thought it would have to. "I'm sure she cares."

"Then count yourself lucky that you don't know her like I do." She mutters, still not turning away from her school work, the conversation sounding like it holds no interest to her.

Kate can't help but stifle a laughter at Alexis' wit, clearly matching that of her father. "I mean, I did only meet her that one time but she can't be all that bad." All Alexis responds with as an obvious roll of her eyes. And when she gathers in her mind all of the teen's reactions and quips to Kate's questioning on the matter, she starts to wonder and her curiosity is trying very hard to get the better of her. "You know, your dad doesn't seem to talk about her that much."

Alexis finally leans up from her notebook and nods, "He's afraid of poisoning me against her. I think he still has hopes that she'll come around one day and actually want to have a relationship with me but," Alexis says with a slight shake of her head and turns back down to her work, "my mom did that by herself. After I found out about the affair, I kind of just... stopped waiting for that day when she'd want to act the way mothers are supposed to act."

Physically, Kate seems normal, like she hopes she is. But inside, everything is on a complete standstill. Her heart isn't even beating. "Affair?" She finally breaks through her constricted throat. Alexis just gives her a simple nod. "Meredith had an affair? He never mentioned that."

"Well," Alexis says as she leans back up from her notebook, "he doesn't like to talk about it. I think he still thinks it's somehow his fault. At least that's always been my theory. We never talked about it, but I found out when I was ten when I was playing around in his office and found the newspaper clipping he keeps about it. I took it to Gram and she told me the story. After that, I didn't really have any interest in having a mother who'd do that to my dad."

When Alexis turns back down to her notebook and continues with her school work, Kate swallows her breath as best she can and turns away. If she could, she'd probably find him and give him a hug. She wouldn't say anything, give no explanation or warning, just put her arms around his chest and offer him the comfort and support he needed back then. Rick having a troubled past was always her second guess behind just being a normal kid from a well-off home. She always had an idea that he had the problems normal people have growing up, but being cheated on by the mother of your own daughter, she can't imagine how much that must have hurt him.

And none of this is to mention whatever happened to him during his time at Edgewyck that acted as the catalyst to the situation she finds herself in now.

* * *

After Alexis had finished the bulk of her school work for the day, she and Kate got in the car and headed west out of town, toward Edgewyck Academy. Maybe having a Castle at her side might help. At the very least, it will be nice not to have to do everything alone.

After over an hour of driving, Kate pulls into a large parking lot outside of an immense schoolyard, with a single, gigantic brick building acting as the focal point of the entire area. There are some smaller buildings surrounding the back, what she guesses are the dormitories and probably the gym, along with the sports fields making up the distance between them. But the thing she notices most is how secluded the school is. It strikes her as one of the most appealing features, but only for parents who send their kids here for that very reason.

"This place is really out of the way." Alexis says as she's climbing out of the passenger side.

"That's probably the point." Kate says and makes for the front entrance.

After walking down a long pathway lined with two large trees, they head inside and are standing in a large foyer with a set of stairs facing the doors leading to an upper level. There are sounds of a few kids talking from down adjacent halls, along with the shutting of a few lonely lockers and doors. Alexis points them over to a door marked for the administration and they both head inside. In the front office, an elderly woman sits behind a desk with a pair of glasses hanging from a strap around her neck. The woman looks up to them with a smile, "May I help you?"

"Hi, I'm Kate Beckett. I just have a couple of questions. I was hoping to speak with the principal, or maybe the dean?"

The secretary stands up from her chair and turns to the office behind her, but stops in her tracks and turns back to them. "May I ask what it's regarding, please?"

Slightly panicking, Kate shoots a look over to Alexis, whose already stepping up to the plate. "I'm Alexis Castle. My dad went to school here and we're looking at the school for my brother, Reese."

Luckily, the secretary buys Alexis perfectly designed fib and turns into the office behind her. Kate then leans down to Alexis and whispers to her. "Reese?"

Alexis looks over at her with a smirk, "I've always liked that name."

A few moments later, a slenderly built man with white, short hair and a business suit is striding out to greet them with a smile. "Hi, I'm Dean Allen Bartley." He says and extends his hand to Kate, who shakes it quickly, then leaving him to extend his hand to Alexis.

"Kate Beckett," She introduces herself.

"Alexis Castle," Alexis says with a warm smile, but the name clearly catches the dean's attention.

After shaking Alexis' hand, he leans back with narrowed eyes and a smirk. "You wouldn't be related to a _Richard_ Castle by any chance, would you?"

Alexis smiles warmly and nods, "Yes, he's my dad."

But Kate's mind is asking a thousand questions all at once, and it takes all her restraint to keep from putting this man into interrogation. "I thought so." The dean says while wagging his finger at the girl. "I'd recognize Ricky's smile from a mile away. How's he been?" He asks and crosses his arms.

Alexis picks up her cue and looks over to Kate, giving her an arched brow and slight pout. "You haven't heard? I thought everybody had."

Realizing Alexis' train of thought, Kate quickly catches onto it as the dean is looking between them. "No, what happened?"

It's the secretary speaking up from behind her desk who catches all their attention. "Not that man involved in that horrible crash outside Brattleboro on Tuesday?"

"I'm afraid so, yes." Kate answers solemnly.

"Oh my god," The dean says, turning back to her. "Is he okay?"

Kate nods again and shifts her gaze down to the tile floor under their feet. "He's still in the hospital, but they're pretty sure he's going to make it." She half-truths. "If I may ask, how did you know him?"

"He was a student of mine back when I still taught English here." Intrigued, Kate raises her brow. "Yeah, you don't forget a guy like Ricky. He had a great talent. I always wished I'd encouraged him more, but... can't say he didn't make anything of himself, after all. But uh... what happened? I'll help however I can."

"Actually, now that you mention it," Alexis says, giving Kate another look, "he was in the middle of working on something before the crash happened that had something to do with the school."

"Oh?" He says.

"Yeah," Kate says with an affirmative nod, "from what I remember, he was on his way up here to ask a few questions when he got into the wreck. Have you ever had any of your students go missing?" Kate asks.

"Missing?" He says and leans back as he thinks, "We've had boys run away. It happens more times then I'd like to say, but..." He trails off.

But Kate is pressing him for details before he can even think of losing the thought. "What do you mean?"

"Well, to be honest, over the years, Edgewyck Academy has gained sort of a... reputation. Our secluded location and strict set of rules makes more well-off parents see us as a halfway house of sorts. Parents tend to send their kids here when they're either at their wit's end or because they think it's the best option for them. Some of the boys here have been neglected their whole lives, have no father figures, and when you try to introduce structure to them at that age, well... some of them rebel and they run away."

"You don't contact the police or report them as missing?" Kate asks.

He just sadly shakes his head, "Most of the time, all we can do is notify the parents. The boys who tend to run away are considered to be delinquents. Once the police find them, all they do is call their parents, who then send them back here. Sometimes, it's a cycle that doesn't end until they graduate or simply drop out."

"So," Kate starts again, trying to get her mind back on track to her investigation, "you've never heard of anything happening to anyone? Maybe recently?"

It's that question that causes the dean's eyes to narrow and turn to face her, "I-I'm sorry, but-"

"Well," The receptionists interrupts from her desk. And once again, all voices stop and all eyes shift over to the elderly woman behind the desk, "there is that boy Eric Lowery."

"Eric Lowery?" Kate asks, simply to commit the name to memory, already mentally writing it down on her murder board back at her hotel.

"Yes," she says and comes around her desk in between Alexis and the dean. "It was on the news a few days ago. He attended the school, oh... say almost twenty years ago. I remember him because the previous dean was his mentor. He was a troubled boy, so when he disappeared, we all assumed he'd run away like they all do and waited for the call back from his parents. But I heard on the news that they found the remains of his body in the woods about an hour north of here."

"Linda," the dean turns to her with still crossed arms, "why am I just hearing about this? How many more runaways could be dead?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but it wasn't very big news. He was found in the woods and he didn't have any family left, they said. And the news said that it was most likely an accident. People around here get lost hiking all the time. You know that."

The dean then quickly turns back to Alexis and Kate, and she just now realizes that they're still semi-undercover. With a heavy sigh, Dean Bartley continues. "I'm sorry about all this. You wanted to ask about admission for someone?"

Suddenly, Kate's phone chimes in her pocket. With one finger held up to him, Kate reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, seeing a text from Alexis. _'Say Gram needs us to pick her up.'_ Kate smiles a fighting smile and looks up to the dean. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bartley, but Alexis' grandmother needs us to pick her up. We promised her we'd go shopping while her father is in the hospital."

The dean nods slowly and waves at them. "Well, please, keep us in mind and feel free to call if you have any questions." He rattles off as Alexis and Kate are turning out the door. She can hear him speaking lowly to the secretary as she's pushing the door open, sounding all too serious.

Alexis and Kate dash out of the front entrance as quickly as they could while still seeming normal, and it's when they're passing the two trees out front that Kate is looking over to Alexis with a smile. "You were really good in there, bud." Kate says.

Alexis looks over to her with a smile that she can see Castle giving her. "It's in the genes."

* * *

 _A/N: Big, huge, gigantic shoutout to Michele, who helped me out big time with medical jargon stuff._

Love you forever for all the help! :)


	10. Chapter 10

For the second time in the day, her phone is ringing in her ear. But this time, she's just parking the car outside the hospital as she waits for the other end to pick up. After the second ring, he answers. "Esposito." He says, sounding busy.

"Espo, hey, it's Beckett." She says as she climbs out of the car, grabbing her bag from the back seat.

In the background, she can hear him call over Ryan. They should have left for the night by now, they probably caught a case if they're still there at this time. "Yo Beckett, we've been dying for details here." Esposito continues, and Beckett can clearly hear from his tone on the phone that she's on speaker.

"Yeah, what's going on?" Ryan says, "How's Castle?"

Kate sighs as she walks through the sliding doors of the hospital, "Still in the hospital on sedation. I'm going to see him now."

"So, what happened? Montgomery won't tell us anything." Ryan continues.

"That's what I'm calling about, Ryan." She says clearly, slowing to a stop in the waiting area of the ER. "I need you to get me everything you can on an Eric Lowery. The local police are boxing me out and something tells me they wouldn't know what to do if they didn't anyway."

"Eric Lowery..." Esposito draws out as he types in the name, she guesses. "All I can find right now is a news article about some remains they found. Looks like they identified him through dental records."

Kate pushes out a frustrated breath, gritting her teeth at another dead end. "Crap," she says through clenched teeth. "Guys, Castle was onto something, and it involves this guy, Eric Lowery. I feel it in my gut, okay? And whatever it is, it nearly got him killed."

"We'll do whatever we can, Beckett." Esposito says firmly, putting as much seriousness into his tone as she can hear. "How's Castle, really?"

But feeling drained and not wanting to explain his situation as it really is, she disregards him as best she can. "I don't want to talk about it, Javi. I'm going to sit with him now and try to find something on his laptop that might help. Martha took Alexis out for the night to this restaurant she said she found, and I don't want to spend any longer in my hotel room than I already am."

"Well, call us when he wakes up." Ryan says after a tense moment of pause in the conversation. "We're all pulling for him."

"And we'll dig up whatever we can on this Lowery guy." Espo says. "Keep in touch, Boss."

"Yeah," She says as an offhanded dismissal and presses end on the screen of her phone, sliding it back into her bag, which contains Castle's laptop, mainly grabbed out of the want to fight temptation some more, her leather-bound folder holding all the case photos and notes she's taken, and a mostly blank notepad.

She's never gotten the chance to just sit with him. It seems selfish of her, almost. If it were her in that bed, they'd probably scold him for spending too much time at her bedside, waiting for her to wake up. She hasn't spent much time at all next to him. She's been busy looking into what happened, talking to Alexis and Martha, which seems to get easier and easier as their friendship blossoms mostly thanks to their joint vested interest in them being in Vermont, and it's shameful for her to admit to herself, but simply not being able to bear the sight of him so broken and helpless.

But after not hearing back from Josh from her text message she had sent him this morning, she needs to be around another person. And while she doesn't have the energy to question why, the one person she needs to be around right now is Castle, in a coma or not.

Walking down the hall, feeling like an emotional husk, she comes to a stop outside his room when she sees a tall silhouette standing at the foot of his bed through the paper blinds put up against the window. Instinctively, her hand reaches into her bag and grabs onto the grip of her carry piece. Her muscles tighten as they ready themselves for a response to this person. The rounds should have ended two hours ago and Castle's attending nurse is sitting behind the desk in the ICU already.

In one quick motion, she grabs onto the handle and flings open the door, ready to pull her pistol out, but lets go of the grip when she sees her boyfriend standing at the foot of her partner's hospital bed, holding his medical chart. "Josh?"

A smile blooms onto his face and he puts the chart back into the slot of his bed. "Hey, you." He says and takes a few large steps over to her. Reacting on instinct still, she tilts her head back and presses a chaste, empty kiss to his lips. "I got someone to cover my shifts for the next few days. I thought I'd come and surprise you."

"So what are you doing here?" She asks, the words spilling out before she can catch them. A part of her is happy to see him, but she has her mind focused around someone else right now.

"I didn't know where to find you. I figured you'd be here." He says, not being swayed by her unwanting tone.

"Oh," is all she can manage when she sees his proud smile.

And after too long of a pause, not knowing what to say at all, he continues. "You aren't happy to see me?" He asks, sounding surprised.

"No," she reassures him, somewhat honestly. "No, it's not that. It's just... surprising." She minces her words and pulls her bag off her shoulder and sets it down next to the wall. "I'm glad you're here." She says, quickly leaning back up and pecking him on the cheek.

"Your partner looks pretty rough compared to the last time I saw him." Josh says, looking over his shoulder to Castle, who's still looking as broken, weak, and helpless as when she last saw him.

And when she looks at him, with that invading tube protruding out of his mouth, his usually stylish hair wrapped and hidden in a bandage over a freshly scarred and scratched face with his arm in a sling and a bandage covering the other, she can't look away and makes no effort in hiding the heartbreak the sight brings her. "They're keeping him under for at least another week. They want to uh..." She trails off, waving her hand at the bed before tucking them into the back pockets of her jeans, "they need to give his body more time to heal before they try to wake him up."

Josh nods and looks back around to her, "I saw in his chart that they found some internal bleeding and some slight pulmonary contusion. It's normal to keep patients like this sedated so the body doesn't have to work too hard."

Kate nods and crosses her arms, still not taking her eyes off Castle's face. She can still see his ruggedly handsome features, even under all that invasive medical equipment keeping him alive. "They still don't know the extent of the brain damage."

She can see Josh give her a comforting nod and feels him put his hand on her arm, "They'll run some tests once they take him off the sedative, see if he responds to commands, that sort of thing. But I'm sure he'll be fine, Katie."

And when that name leaves his tongue, her emotional husk-like state doesn't even try to hide the cringe. "Please," she says, lifting a hand to him, "can you not call me that?" She asks, trying to be as polite as she can.

But Josh's brow creases and his hand falls away. "What do you mean?"

"It's just..." She tries to explain without hurting his feelings, "my dad calls me that." She tells him, hoping and praying that no further explanation is required on her part. He made the effort to come all the way up here, she doesn't want to let him down by her reaction any more than she already has.

After a moment though, he seems to accept it, defeatingly, and continues. "Well, why don't I take us out to dinner? We can find a place here in town."

Kate pushes out a hard chuckle and gives him a disengaging smile. "I-I can't, Josh. I'm sorry." She says and crosses her arms back around herself.

"Come on, Kate. You look like you could use a night off. Castle's going to be fine, I'm sure." Josh says, reaching for her again.

But she shrugs her shoulders, trying her best not to seem like she's shaking him off. "I can't, okay?"

"Kate, your partner is fine here. We can go out to dinner then spend a next few days together. It'll be nice."

"Josh, I'm not on a vacation up here." She says, trying to keep her voice under control around her partner. "I have to look after Alexis and make sure Castle can recognize his daughter when he wakes up. I have to make sure Martha isn't pulling anyone's hair out, including her son's waiting for him to wake up. I have to look into what happened. The local police are _totally_ incompetent." She rambles off, listing a litany of reasons why she can't go along with him.

"I'm sure Castle's family can handle going a few days without you. And whatever he was doing, did you ever stop and think that if he didn't call you, maybe he didn't want you to know about whatever he was doing?"

"He'd tell me." She defends him, giving Josh a soft but stern half-lidded gaze. "He was probably just scared and didn't want me to be in danger."

"What's going on here, Kate? I know you two work together and everything but-"

"It's what he'd do for me!" She softly exclaims with burning eyes, looking up to an increasingly looking hurt Josh, whose reacting with an angry twisted reaction. After staring him down for a moment, she's continuing. "If it were me in that hospital bed, he wouldn't stop until he had answers. He'd dedicate himself to it. Just like I am with finding out what happened and making sure his family is taken care of while I do it." She can feel tears wanting to jump from her lashes, but is holding her breath trying to draw them back in. "So I'm sorry, but I can't leave."

She turns away and looks back over to her partner, stepping around Josh who remains facing the door. The room is silent except for the hiss of Castle's ventilator for a tense few moments. And Josh's low voice doesn't seem to shake her when he speaks again. "Do you love him?"

She feels her legs stop, her heart coming next. She spins back around to face him with a straightened brow while biting down on the inside of her lip, staring him down and refusing to give him an answer.

"Just tell me the truth, Kate. Do you love him?"

"It's not like that." She shakes her head, almost talking over him with her defense.

Josh clearly hears her, seeing him nod and look down to the floor as his jaw clicks. And after a moment, she can clearly see what he is going to say next is going to bring him hurt. "You just don't love me."

She gnashes her teeth briefly and looks away, feeling her insides thicken with ice. "Is there an answer I can give you that won't hurt?"

Josh's eyes drift shut, seeming fed up. "Will you stop trying to spare my feelings and just be honest for once?"

Kate nods, shuffles her feet, and looks down to the floor as she recrosses her arms, the ice forming inside her chest catching up to her and making her feel cold. "I should." She says on a shrug. "I feel like I'm supposed to, but it's like I have this... wall."

He gives her another nod, trying to stay as stoic as he can, "And you put that wall there to keep me out, right?"

"I put it there to keep _everybody_ out, Josh."

"Just not him." He says, motioning to the unconscious man in the bed next to them.

" _Especially_ him, Josh." She urges him.

"Are you really saying you've never looked at him that way? I mean, the guy's rich, famous, he's a best-selling writer, he's-"

"You know I don't care about that." Kate defends herself with a shake of her head. Josh silently challenges her by lifting his brow. "Alright... yes," she admits in a quiet voice, "there was a time when I thought we could give it a shot together." She guiltily confesses. "But, then he got back together with his ex-wife and left for the summer."

"And now?" He continues to challenge her.

"Josh," She sighs a sigh thick with emotion, "I didn't plan it like this, okay?" She shrugs and lets her arms fall down to her sides. "We spend nearly every day together. And for as long as I've convinced myself I had to go it alone, there hasn't been anyone that's... been..."

After she trails off and refuses to give Josh the answer, he pushes her again. "Been what?"

Kate feels a smile sneak its way onto her face, "Been stubborn enough to keep coming back. A part of me wishes I felt differently about him and that he really _was_ the annoying, self-centered jackass he shows everyone, but... I don't and he isn't." When she sees Josh holding back as much hurt as he can, she's continuing, letting the words flow out of her before she can even think of what she's saying. "And it would be easy for me to say that if I could go back, I'd do things differently and make sure he doesn't get to me the way he has, but-"

"I _get_ it... Kate." Josh interrupts her. "So, I never really had a shot then, did I?"

Kate swallows against her heart lodged in her throat and shakes her head smally. "I'm sorry, Josh."

Craning his neck and looking away from her as quickly as he can, Josh nods and gives her one last look. "Me too." And with that, turns to leave and is out the door of Castle's room and is out of sight before she realizes what just happened. It still doesn't hit her as she hears the door to his room shut closed.

She looks over to Castle's limp, unconscious body, tears dripping from her lashes in small pairs. "God, I hope you didn't hear all that." She says and plops herself down in the chair at his bedside. Not at all caring and with nothing holding her back, she pulls the chair closer to his bed and reaches through the railing, grabbing onto his cold hand, tightly folding her's around it. She sits, softly petting his knuckles with her thumb, waiting for his fingers to twitch inside her grasp in the back of her mind.

When she realizes and admits to what she's waiting for, she throws herself back in her chair. When her eyes fall upon her bag, her restraint is broken and shattered into pieces. She leans over and picks up her bag and flips it open, pulling his laptop out, opening it, and not hesitating to click open his next journal entry, dated _Feb. 28, 2011._

 _The fact that it hurts this much is probably a bad sign._

 _I keep telling myself that if she's happy, that's all that should matter, even if it isn't with the person I want it to be with. If she can live a life she deserves and be happy doing it, I shouldn't be so selfish and start putting conditions on it. She doesn't deserve that or need that. Josh clearly cares about her and wants what's best for her. And if he can give that to her, I probably wouldn't forgive myself if I was the one that ended up standing in the way of that. But in the same tone, I also wouldn't forgive myself if it was me that ended up being the demise of their relationship._

 _After all, I doubt she ever told him about the kiss. And I don't think he was the one that pulled us out of that freezer, seeing us nearly frozen to death in each other's arms. The one time it happens and my arms were so numb I can't remember how it felt. Just my luck. I think I'm still numb from that stupid freezer._

 _But I know what it's like to be that man. I know what it feels like to have the woman you love stolen from you. And if Josh is smart enough to be a doctor but too stupid not to feel that way, there are bigger issues at play. But I've felt that kind of hurt before. It's a pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Because at the end of the day, I have to be the bigger man and admit that Josh is a good guy. Probably better than me for a laundry list of reasons. He's a doctor who helps people all over the world and rides motorcycles. Isn't that every girl's dream?_

 _But this whole bomb thing got me dwelling on things. On where I want to be when my time actually does come and what I would want to have said. I ended up writing her a letter but it quickly turned into... something else. I didn't have the nerve to destroy it like I probably should have. I'm thinking of just keeping it around and having it sent to her in case I actually die, that way I won't have to be around to see her want to kill me when she reads it._

 _Funny, the only way I can work up the courage is if I picture myself as dead. At least then, it wouldn't be this hard to come to grips with her wanting to be happy and not having it be with the person I really want it to be with._

Kate reads the last line on the screen, knowing what he's saying in his journal. Her brimming eyes break away from the screen and look to her partner, then back down to the screen. Feeling her heart squeeze, she puts her fingers down onto the keyboard, typing out a reply to his journal on the line below.

 _You make me happy, Castle._


	11. Chapter 11

The night before reminds her too much of a time she swore she was passed.

She'd come back an hour or so after Josh had left, set her things down, and just stood in the shower, letting the hot water and steam block out the outside world and hiding her tears behind the water running down her face, not being able to feel the burn and the ache over the heat. She can't remember how long she stood there, letting go of all her mental restraints and just letting her mind drift and wander aimlessly. But by the time she finally managed to work up the nerve to turn the water off, the only thing left to do was to climb underneath the covers of her bed.

She's still lying in bed, wide awake but void of any ambition to get out of bed, at least for the moment. Her phone hasn't rung, the whiteboard sitting in front of the TV is full of pictures, notes, names, and questions, all of which lead to nowhere, and she'd broken up with her boyfriend just the night before. It would be nice to be able to go into the precinct and drown in a sea of paperwork for once. It's what she would want to do. She actually _wants_ to do paperwork, that can't be a good sign.

Josh was always busy, constantly shooting her down when she'd ask to spend time together. Either off in Haiti or Africa, or in the hospital on shift. But she knows and can admit to it now, that the only reason she ever asked was that she knew he would be busy and couldn't make it. _What kind of relationship is that,_ she thinks bitterly to herself as she traces patterns in the stucco on the ceiling. Always keeping one foot out the door, keeping to her policy of never committing to anything except her job, and refusing to let anyone commit to her.

 _But Castle,_ the thought rings in her head.

But she stops it by violently flinging the covers off her body and pushing herself upright. She can only be fed up with herself at this point. Admitting that there was a time when she had wanted to be with Castle, but fell through, was harder than she thought. Up until then and just like everything else, she simply pretended it never happened. Like them nearly getting frozen to death in each other's arms, _or that-_

Once again, she shakes her head, physically trying to rattle away the thoughts and the images they come with. Deciding it's best to just get the day started, she stands up and heads for the bathroom, coming out a few minutes later fresh from her morning routine as best as she can go through it being away from home. After getting dressed, slipping on her mother's ring around her neck, she pulls a turtleneck sweater over herself and heads next door to see if Alexis and Martha want to head out to breakfast. She can't do anything else besides stare at the murder board until Ryan and Espo gets back to her.

Kate knocks on the door. "Come in, dear," she hears Martha call from the other side.

With a smile, feeling dishonestly heavy, she steps into their room where Martha is once again fluttering around the kitchen and Alexis is sitting at the table with her phone. "Morning," Kate greets the two of them.

"Good morning, Katherine." Martha says back in a light tone. Kate closes the door behind her and slowly starts to pace toward the table, the smile she threw on for the sake of his family starts to fade. She's grown to adore these two women over the course of this last week or so, but even still, it would be a blessing to be around someone she doesn't have to act strong and stand up straight for, someone she feels wouldn't call her out for just wanting to feel weak and defenseless for once. Maybe even help her when she does so she can go back to being strong, as she's expected to be.

As she takes the seat opposite Alexis, who gives her a silent smile for the morning and looks back down to her phone, Kate sits and listens to the sound of Martha floating around their kitchenette, busying herself just for the sake of busying herself. Luckily for Alexis, she seems to be succeeding. "So," Kate breaks the silence, just wanting more noise than that, "I called the precinct last night."

Both Martha and Alexis look over to her expectantly, stopping what they're doing.

"They said they were going to dig up whatever they can on the name the school gave us."

"Ugh," Martha groans and rolls her eyes, going back to her meaningless rearrangement of the hotel room. "Honestly, sending Richard to that school was one of the mistakes I always wished I could take back." She confesses, with Kate pretending she's not listening to every word. "Richard had already been kicked out of every school in the city. At the time, I thought a school that prided itself on structure and education would be just what he needed at fourteen."

"Dad turned out fine, Gram." Alexis chimes herself in. And Kate can't help but think she's trying to defend herself as much as she is her father.

"Fine," Martha rolls her eyes, turning to Kate from the other side of the island in the kitchenette. "Did you know that when he was ten, one of his first parent-teacher conferences was about a story he'd written as an assignment?"

"Really?" Kate asks with a knit in her brow, "the teacher called you just because of a story he'd written?"

"Well, it was the subject he'd chosen. The teacher said that he'd written about meeting his father one day, and what he'd be like when he'd finally found him." She can feel her heart start to ache with a dull pain, thinking of how hidden and far away his eyes would be if he were hearing this. "It wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but his teacher said it was so well written that she had tears in her eyes after she'd read it."

"He never told me about that." Kate says.

Martha sighs and turns back around. "It was one of those things I kept to myself. At the time, I felt so defensive that I never told Richard about it, pretended like it never happened. There were a lot of those when I was raising Richard. Preforming seven, eight nights a week, at rehearsal four days, on the road touring for eights months here and another ten there... I thought I was giving my son the best life I could, then I had to go and hear about how the one thing he wants is to meet his father, how- it's the one dream he feels can only come true in his sleep." Martha then turns back around, looking over her shoulder toward Kate. "His words."

Kate looks away, nodding her head as she thinks about him. "Well, I think he made up for it." She shrugs, motioning with her head over to the redhead sitting across from her. Alexis looks up to see what she meant, and smiles brightly when she sees Kate eyeing her.

Martha clearly sees the scene between the two of them. "I tell you, Katherine," Martha says and comes around to the other side of the island and leans against the counter. "Richard was head over heels for Alexis."

"Sitting right here, Gram." Alexis says, eyes still down on her phone.

Kate stifles her giggle. "When a heart as big as Richard's gets broken, it takes more time to mend that he'd care to admit. And over the years, he's had it broken more times than he deserves."

"You can thank Mom for that." Alexis mutters under her breath. Kate looks over to give her a reassuring gaze, but Alexis keeps it down to her phone.

"It wasn't just that, Alexis." Martha says, shaking her head. "What that woman did was horrendous, especially after your father asked her to fix things. But it isn't all her fault."

"H-he..." Kate interrupts, lifting her hand and shaking her head in disbelief at what Martha just said. "He went back to Meredith after the affair?"

Martha rolls her eyes and nods, "He had said that they were married and wanted to keep it that way, that he was willing to look past it for the sake of Alexis and their marriage, but... well, I don't have to tell you how the story ends." Martha finishes and crosses her arms, turning her gaze to the floor.

"I think if Dad had his way back then, he'd still be married to my mom." Alexis continues where her gram left off. "Filing for divorce was about the best thing she could have done." The teen quips and looks back down to her phone.

But Kate can't help but step in and try to steer the girls thoughts away from that. "Come on, Alexis. You don't really mean that, do you?"

Alexis looks up to her, "After she left, it was just me and Dad. Since he was at home all day writing, he was always there when I needed him. The ages of five through ten were some of the best years I had as a kid. But now, there's me, Dad, and Gram. I like that too."

"Anything to keep your father from going mad trying to figure out a teenage girl, Alexis." Martha says.

Alexis chuckled at her grandmother, with Kate simply smiling at the tight-knit family of Castle's. "I know my parents never did." Kate says. "I went through a pretty rough wild child phase."

"You did?" Alexis asks incredulously.

"Be serious, Katherine." Martha says with a smirk.

"No, I did." Kate answers and lifts her hand to Martha.

"What'd you do?" Alexis asks, sounding cautiously curious.

Kate rolls her eyes to herself. "Nothing I'd want to hear from _my_ daughter's mouth, that's for sure." She can hear the teen let out a soft chuckle under her breath. "And I know your dad is scared of you starting your's." She says, nodding toward Alexis.

Alexis' brow knits, looking deeply confused at the statement. "Me?"

"Oh, he's _terrified_ of it. You should have seen him." Kate says, feeling the first honest smile illuminate her features that she's felt in a long time.

"I'm pretty sure I'm too busy for that." Alexis says, looking back down to her phone. "Besides, I think I have enough examples of 'wild child' phases to know they can take bad turns." Alexis says with a hidden smirk, eyeing her grandmother.

Martha stops and lets her shoulders droop. "Now, is that any way to talk about your dear grandmother? You don't hear Katherine talking ill of _her_ grandmother, do you?"

Kate shakes her head, remembering her grandmother fondly. "You'd never catch me talking about Grandma Lily that way." She says, a brief, warm memory of her summers spent up in Burlington floating into her mind.

"See?" Martha waves at her, looking over at Alexis.

"Well," Kate continues, wanting to get back to delving into Alexis' childhood, seeing her partner through someone else's eyes, "what changed when you were ten, Alexis?" She asks, the words coming to her as she finishes her own question with the answer popping into her mind. _Gina,_ she says to herself.

And Alexis can clearly tell she already has the answer. "Yeah," Alexis nods, "Dad got remarried to Gina. I like Gina, but... we both knew she wasn't my mother and sort of left it at that."

Kate nods in response and looks down to her lap, the room going silent. She can feel in the air that their minds are all still on Castle. If he knew they were here talking and practically gossiping about him, he'd flip. "I just always knew him as the guy with a girl on either arm." She says after none of them continue the conversation. "You know... New York's most eligible bachelor number nine."

"Well, Katherine," Martha sighs again, "not to excuse my son's stupidity when it comes to his love life, but there were a couple periods in his life when he simply thought that he wasn't meant to have a serious relationship, so," Martha raises her brow and shrugs her shoulders with her arms crossed, "he gave up looking."

"And he was miserable too." Alexis mutters in the same low voice.

"Oh, Alexis," Martha waves her hand at the teen.

"You didn't see him, Gram. You were still living with Chet after him and Gina got divorced."

"What do you mean, Alexis?" Kate prods, ignoring every synapes in her brain telling her to end the conversation and turn in the other direction.

Alexis leans back in her chair and puts her phone down in her lap. "Dad had gotten bored with the book party lifestyle. It was always the same, he would always say. After he decided to kill off Derrick Storm, he went through a writer's block. And I've been around him when he's had blocks before and seen how frustrated and depressed he gets with himself, but they usually only last a few days at the most. But this one lasted for weeks."

When Alexis doesn't continue, Kate is pressing her, starting with a soft chuckle despite herself. "What changed?"

Alexis smiles warmly up at her and stands up. "He invented Nikki Heat." She says simply and walks into the bathroom.

Kate can feel her heart send a warmth through her, clearly showing by the blush rising like a lit flare up her cheeks. "So," Martha sighs again, pressing off the counter and going back into the kitchen, "Katherine, how are you and Josh?"

Martha's casual question, an attempt to keep the conversation between them going, catches her off her already lowered guard. She shouldn't be ready to talk about this, it should feel wrong to have this discussion so soon after. Going with this feeling, she chokes back her words on the matter.

"Richard tells me you two have grown closer ever since he canceled his trip." Martha says nonchalantly as she continues to flutter about the kitchen.

Kate crosses her arms around herself and shifts herself around on her wooden chair. "Actually, we broke up last night."

She hears Martha stop right in the middle of what she's doing and comes back around the counter to sit on the bed Alexis had claimed. "You did?" She asks, clearly not expecting to receive an answer. Kate gives the woman a single nod, eyeing her under the veil of her haphazardly done hair, and crosses one leg over the other. "May I ask what happened?"

Feeling Martha at least deserves her eyes, Kate looks up and gives her a heavy smile, accompanied by a shrug of her shoulders in a small motion, trying to play off the emotional turmoil Josh put her through last night. Josh she has no problem talking about, it's what he called her on that's the problem. "Nothing, just..." she tries, "he was at the hospital when I went to go sit with Castle last night. He tried to make it a getaway for the two of us and he couldn't understand that I have resposibilities here that I can't ignore."

Martha gives Kate a moment, but she can still feel her eyes, softly pulling more words out of her. Something of a mother's gift to see through her defenses.

"So, I told him. I'm not on vacation up here. I'm here for my partner. I mean, I never thought it was serious or anything. I liked him and all, but... just was too much work for too little result." _Josh or pushing Castle away?_ Her thoughts say to her.

Martha seems to end their conversation there, simply saying that she's sorry it had to happen now on top of everything she's dealing with.

Sometime later, when Martha and Alexis agree to go sit with Castle for a while after Alexis gets the idea of narrating one of Castle's books to him, Kate heads downstairs to get a bottle of water from the vending machine near the laundry room. It's a bright day, but her thoughts and mind feel cluttered, clouded, like she's simply unable to get anything in order, especially after Josh's visit last night. It might have been better for her mental stability if she'd simply let him stay the few days he wanted. At least then he wouldn't have asked the things he did.

Kate is shaking her head and twisting the cap of her water off and taking a long swig of the refreshing liquid when she rounds the corner to head back up the stairs, seeing Alexis heading down the walkway, heading away from her and toward the car. Kate looks up when the sight of a truck coming down the road toward them catches her attention.

It's a large black truck, with two tires in back, a grill across its front fender, and the windshield tinted. Her mind immediately flashes back to that night she first drove back to New York, of the duly truck that tailgated her for nearly two minutes solid before paralleling her in the road and speeding off. But the sight of the grill...

Kate's heart swings into a panic when she sees the passenger side window roll down and the sheen of a metallic object lift inside.

Her body is jolting into action before she realizes it.

* * *

 _A/N: Not sure how I feel about this chapter. Took me two days to pump out, not feeling too inspired as I was with this chapter. I am with the next chapter. It should be up probably by Sunday. Let me know what you think. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

" _Alexis!"_ She screams out with her body trembling and surging with adrenaline, running at full gate toward her.

Alexis turns to her with fear and panic at the sound of Kate's howl.

" _Get down!"_ Kate yells again as she dives, flying through the air and grabbing onto Alexis just as she hears the quick succession of the rapid gunfire shatter the stillness in the air of the quiet town. Kate and Alexis fall to the ground and land with a painful bounce against the concrete walkway of the hotel, feeling a shower of glass and dust rain down on her as she huddles herself over Alexis. Kate feels her breath lock, her body frozen and grabbing into Castle's daughter. The next thing she can hear is the squeal of tires from down the road.

Kate's mind finally seems to catch up with her body and its actions, coming back to herself and her thoughts one by one. When she looks down to the girl she's holding, Alexis is quivering on the ground with her arms hiding her face, bits of glass and plaster littering her red hair. From ahead of them, she hears the door to the Lexus open, but Kate is looking up and putting her mind into work again.

"Martha, stay in the car!" She shouts from her place, lying on the ground next to Alexis. Kate lets out what she can of her breath and pushes herself off the ground, hearing Martha shout from the car but not focusing on it. If she's yelling, she's not hurt. "Alexis," Kate starts in a soft, hopeful voice. She puts a hand gently on the girl's shoulder as she lies facing away from her. "Alexis, are you okay?"

She lets out a shuttering breath, almost coming across as a scared whimper, her body still trembling violently. "I-I don't know."

"Come on," Kate tries, putting her hands on the teen's shoulders and pulling her upright into a sitting position. "Focus Alexis, I need you to talk to me, okay?" She remains as cool as she can, trying her best to stamp out the scared tremble in her voice. "Were you hit?"

Hearing Alexis finally release a long earthquake of a breath, she puts her hands on her chest and pats herself down, "No... no, I'm fine."

She feels a cool wave of relief wash through her veins, letting her muscles unravel from the tension and fear. "Thank god." She breathes and pulls her into a protective hug.

The sound of sirens wailing in the distance catches their attention, but only for a second before she's focusing back on Alexis. "Kate," Alexis says, finally finding her voice and turning to look at her over her shoulder with tears welling up in her frightened eyes, "what just happened?"

* * *

The time passes in a haze, all of Kate's attention pinpointed on Alexis. Her supporting gestures and touch haven't stopped, all she can do to substitute for the man that is supposed to be at the girl's side and would probably kill anyone but himself to do it. She knows too well that her touch and presence is not even close to being a suitable substitute for her father's, or even her mother's touch, but it's all she has to offer her right now. Alexis is now sitting down in the back of an ambulance that pulled up just a few minutes after the first of the patrol cars pulled up.

Officer Cody, the older officer who was with Thomas at the hospital, was one of the first to arrive, gun already drawn and held as if it was the first time he's ever pulled it from his holster in all his time on the force. Kate's sitting between Alexis and the opening to the back of the ambulance, with the paramedics doing another check, making for sure that Alexis is okay. Kate has her arm draped supportively around her shoulders, trying her hardest to get the girl's eyes to come back to life. She's been starring off into space ever since she seemed to realize they were out of immediate danger.

Kate can hear Martha outside, scolding and branding different people as they all buzz around the scene. Kate would go out and try to calm her down, but she knows that expelling this energy is probably just Martha's way of coping with the situation. It's been longer than Kate is aware of before she sees Officer Cody come to a standstill at the back of the ambulance, giving her a look that says he wants to finally speak to her. Kate looks back to him, knowing that she needs to take charge and put a handle on the situation so it can end. They've had their lives overturned by all of this as it is.

Silencing the voices in her mind, she rubs Alexis' back, hoping this time she'll respond. "I'm going to talk to the police, okay?"

All she's met with is a small nod.

"If you need me, Alexis," she gently reminds, not moving her arm from around her and putting another hand on the girl's leg, "I'll be right outside." After waiting too long for a response that she doesn't get, Kate stands up and steps out of the ambulance, looking over to another pair of police cruisers off to the right where Martha is being gestured to calm down by the police she's cursing at.

"How is she, Detective?" Officer Cody asks her, his voice small and hesitant.

Kate turns to him with her hands on her hips judgingly, "Don't start with the niceties now, Officer." That catches the officer's attention, who was looking past her and into the ambulance. "I warned you that something bigger was going on and you ignored me."

"Detective, our captain was-"

"You still call _this_ a car-jacking, Officer?!" She yells, pointing over to the broken window and bullet-ridden door of the hotel room downstairs. That silences him. Kate's anger is boiling over so much she can't bother to acknowledge that the officer looks terrified. "My partner's own _daughter_ was nearly killed because _you_ refused to look into it when you had the chance."

"The captain gave us a few days to look into it when Thomas-"

" _That's_ not good enough!" She shouts in his face, shoving a finger into his chest. "If that had been _my_ daughter, you'd be damn lucky to walk away with your _life_ let alone your badge, Officer."

"Beckett!" A familiar voice calls from a distance away. Kate looks past the officer she's yelling at and sees Officer Thomas, the one person on her side in all this, running through the parking lot from the other direction. He comes to a halting stop in his running at his partner's side, whose looking down to his feet in shame. "Sorry I'm late. My ex-wife has my son this weekend."

"The captain is on his way, Detective. He should be here any minute." Officer Cody says, not having the spine to look her in the eye as he did before.

"Why should that matter, Officer? Why aren't you examining the scene? Why haven't you taken my statement yet? We've been sitting here for hours!" She lectures them, making it a point to stand between them and the entrance to the ambulance. She's been on the other end of statements enough times to know how much they can traumatize already emotionally distraught people if not administered right. And these officers are about as clueless as you can hope for.

"Detective Beckett!" A deeper voice calls from the same direction Thomas approached from. All eyes turn to look and see a taller man in a dark blue polo shirt with a yellow shield emblem in the breast. The two officers in front of her step apart to let the man stand between them, directly in front of Kate. Not afraid of authority, local or otherwise, Kate stands unwavering in the face of this man. "I'm Captain Morgan, chief of police here in Brattleboro." He says and extends his hand to her.

But Kate simply crosses her arms and gives him a darkened glare. "I tried to warn your officers the day this occurred that something else was going on here, Captain. Because of your carelessness and inaction, you almost made a man wake up to find out his own daughter had been killed."

"The press are already trying to drag this town's name through the mud, Detective. I want to keep this quiet. Now is there anything you can tell us about who it was that tried to kill you?"

She had a rebuttal formed in her mind, one witty enough even Castle would have complimented her. But with his question showing he at least wants to get down to talking about what happened, she pushes out a short sigh, gathering her thoughts and recalling the event as best she can. "A couple days ago, I was headed back to New York and I had a truck following me. I didn't think anything of it, at first, but now I'm thinking it was trying to scare me."

"Why do you think that?" Officer Thomas asks.

"Because that same truck was the one the shooter was driving." She informs, hoping that it would have been obvious.

"Can you describe it?" The captain asks her, motioning for Thomas to write down what she says.

"Black, newer model, clean, duly, with a grill across the front end, that matches the dents in my partner's car that Officer Thomas told me about."

"Y-you..." Thomas stutters, trying to get a word in edgewise. "You're saying that you think this is the same truck that tried to run your partner off the road?"

"I'm almost certain of it." She says sternly.

"Is there anything else?" The captain continues. "Make, year, model, maybe a license plate?"

"I was kind of focused on saving Alexis' life, Captain. But he did have his front windshield tinted."

"How is that specific?" Officer Cody asks.

"Was it above 90%?" The captain asks her, ignoring the off-handed comment made by his officer.

"Almost completely darkened, it had to be a custom job." Kate says, ignoring the officer as well. "If I were you, I'd check with the local mechanics and start asking questions. I'd also check through recent traffic citations to check who's gotten ticketed for having his front windshield tinted."

"I assure you, Detective Beckett, I will. But that doesn't mean I'm letting you investigate this." The captain stops her, crossing his arms trying to be imposing.

"But Captain-"

"I know it was you that took those pictures of your partner's car. Officer Thomas here hasn't seen a crime scene in his life, he wouldn't know what to look for to save himself. And the fact that he told me what you just said about the suspects grill pretty much word for word, I know you're investigating this illegally. And I'm sure I don't need to remind you that evidence collected illegally is inadmissible in court. Now, you are going to stop your investigation immediately and hand over any further evidence and information you have over to me right now or I'm placing you under arrest."

Kate's blood is boiling with uncontrollable fury making her skin itch. "Captain-"

"Yo!" Another familiar voice calls from behind them.

Kate looks in between the officers in front of her and sees another pair of men walking confidently toward them, making her heated angry vanish. "Espo, Ryan, what-"

"Who are you?" The captain demands as he turns to face them.

"Detectives Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan." Espo smirks as they both flash their badges with Javier in a beige suit and Kevin in blue. "NYPD."

"This isn't your jurisdiction, Detectives." The captain warns them while they tuck their badges away under their coats.

Ryan pulls out a folded set of papers from his inside pocket and beams up at the captain. "It is now, Smallville." He jests and slaps the papers into the captain's chest as he walks past him.

"Ryan, what-" She breathes as the tension is drawn out of her at the sight of her friends. Kate opens her arms and hugs Ryan as he passes her, then hugging Esposito as Ryan heads towards the hotel scene.

Esposito stops at her sides, snaps his lapels down and folds his hands together calmly next to her. "With the attempt on Detective Beckett's _and_ Richard Castle's family's lives, the governor thought it best for the Twelfth Precinct to handle the remainder of the investigation." He explains as the captain is opening the folded letter.

"You can't do that!" Officer Cody retorts.

"Captain, can they really do that?" Officer Thomas is asking.

"Governor?" Kate asks, looking over at Espo.

But Ryan is calling from the pile of broken glass on the ground. "He and Castle are golf buddies."

"But Castle hates golf." She calls back.

"So does the governor." Ryan answers with a beaming smile.

Kate swallows her breathy chuckle and turns back to Espo, who's still in a staring contest with the Brattleboro police captain. "We'd appreciate it if you'd step aside and let us professionals handle it." He boasts and turns to meet his partner, whose knelt over the pile of broken glass pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves.

"Captain, they can't just walk in here and-"

"Yes," The captain says, looking down to the orders in his hand. The captain looks over to his subordinate with a gloomy half-lidded gaze. "They can and they just did."

"What've you got, Ryan?"

"Looks like a nine."

"How many shots?"

"Uh..." Ryan stands up and moves the blinds of the hotel room then quickly looks over to the door, "I'm counting eighteen."

"Seventeen plus one in the chamber, nine mil. I'd put my money on a Glock, maybe a Glock seventeen."

"He got off all eighteen shots from the car and still didn't hit anything?" Ryan asks.

"Could be just a horrible shot." Espo shrugs.

"It was-" Kate tries, but is interrupted by Ryan.

"Cheater switch."

"A what?" Officer Cody frustratingly asks.

Esposito turns to them with his head rolled back, "Full auto switch. Illegal to use and install outside of licensed dealers, usually ones who do work for law enforcement."

"Would explain how he's so inaccurate." Ryan chimes in, motioning to the spray of bullet holes in the wall and through the window.

"He had a tinted front windshield, Espo." Kate finally gets in, knowing they'll understand what she's trying to say.

"Illegal outside of federal law enforcement, and he had a grill?" Ryan asks his partner as he stands back up.

Esposito eyes his partner then marches back up to the captain, standing next to Kate. "We'll need a list of all federal employees in the area and a list of all gun dealers who are licensed to do work for your officers and a twenty-four-hour guard placed on Richard Castle's hosital room and on his family."

"Or would you prefer to get back to getting kittens out of trees?" Ryan snides from the side.

The captain sighs and looks to Esposito calmly. "I'll get you the list as soon as possible, Detectives." With that, the captain motions for his two officers to follow him as he walks back to his car.

And once out of earshot, Kate lets out another relieved breath. "Guys, I don't know what to say."

"Hey," Espo says with a smile, "Castle's our boy too. You think we'd leave him hanging?"

"We forced Montgomery to make some calls right as we heard about the shooting. Didn't take that much arm twisting. He told us that these guys were shutting you out and you might need some help." Ryan confesses as the three of them huddle together at the entrance to the ambulance. "So, what's going on here? Really?"

"I don't know, but none of it is adding up."

"We couldn't find much on that name you gave us." Esposito admits. "Eric Lowery seemed to be a troubled kid who ran away from boarding school."

"Yeah, well, there's more to it than that and Castle knew it."

"But how does something like that not get reported to the police?" Ryan asks as he crosses his arms and leans in close to the huddle.

"Alexis and I talked to the dean who said that since most of these kids are just teenagers acting out, the police label them as delinquents and just take them back to the school if they find them. All the school can do is call the parents."

"And Castle really went to this place?" Esposito asks, and all his answer is a knowing look from Kate. "Man..."

"I'm going to take Alexis and Martha to the hospital and sit with Castle for a few hours." Kate changes the subject. "Meanwhile, you two go to the police station and show these yocals how to do a canvas. Someone else must have seen that truck. After that, I need you to look after Alexis and Martha for me while I go back home."

"Why do you have to go back there?" Ryan asks.

Kate lets out a breath, a cold chill going through her veins at the thought. "There's someone I have to talk to. Someone who might be able to help."

* * *

 _A/N: To quell some worries, I am going to add Castle in as a character in this story soon._

 _Or am I? ._


	13. Chapter 13

The ring twirls in the air, the band spinning and the gem dancing under the low afternoon light.

She's not here for herself this time. She's not here for her past or her ghosts. It's selfish to think about those right now, it's wasted energy. Those ghosts will have to be exercised another day. There's someone else right now that needs that energy. Someone she cares about too deeply to store that energy is depending on her. She can't keep that energy bottled up, he needs it right now. It's his past right now that she's here to deal with. His past that's come back to haunt him, not her's. And she owes it to him to be here, even though he probably wouldn't ask her to be. It's what he's done for her every time her ghosts have come back to haunt her.

It's her turn now.

She nods to herself to steel her resolve and opens her turtleneck and slips the necklace back inside. She flings open the door, grabbing her black leather-bound folder off the passenger seat and taking the distance between the car and the security gate in long, purposeful strides. The gate opens for her, the security guard recognizing her and letting her in without word, and she continues inside. Once at the next security checkpoint, she unclips all of her belongings and puts them down for inspection.

The older black guard smiles at her under his mustache. "Here for Lockwood today, Detective?"

She forces a small smirk as she picks her belongings back up. "Not today, Scott."

His attention caught, he leans back surprised. "Oh? It is that day today, Detective."

 _It's been a week already?_ She thinks to herself briefly, "No, I'm actually here for someone else. Number 13847."

The guard turns around and clicks the number into the computer. "...847," He says and pauses, reading the name off the log. "Ah, Mr. Westlake."

"That's him." She chirps, wanting to keep the light tone up with the guard. He's always so chipper and light, for a prison guard anyway.

"Bringing him down now, Detective. He'll be in room three."

"Tell Barbara I said hello?" She says as she puts her folder back under her arm. Scott points to her with a bright smile and buzzes her through the gate. He shouts the door is opening as she passes through the checkpoint and heads down the long, musty smelling hall, and passes two visiting rooms until she reaches the third, which is empty. It would be here that she would be sitting down with Lockwood, asking him over and over again who it was that hired him.

She's closing the door behind her by the time that night is playing in her mind. She's consciously trying to push the memories away, but the feeling of his strong yet delicate hand on her jaw and his fingers pressing into the back of her neck, the darkness that enclosed his baby blue eyes, the waft of his fresh breath as he closed the distance between them, then the silky softness firmly pressing against her mouth as he stole their first kiss from her. She still remembers the way her heart felt that night, like it had beaten harder than ever before and how her spine rattled and shook as her nerves exploded and eroded every ounce of tightly set self-control quicker than she could even react.

 _It's probably a good thing we never talked about it,_ she thinks as she's sitting down in her usual seat, her folder set squarely in front of her folded arms.

It's another minute to herself, trying to quell her vibrating nerves, before the door ahead of her is opening, and Damian Westlake is shuffling in, wearing a full orange jumpsuit with his wrists and ankles in chains. The guard uncuffs his shackles and closes the door behind him and it's then that Damian looks up across the room and sees her. His emotionally blank demeanor quickly falls into unabashed annoyance. "Hey!" He yells and turns around, kicking the door with his foot to get the guard attention. "I got nothing to say to her!"

" _Sit..._ " She shouts across the room to him, stopping any further advance to get out he might make, "down, Damian."

Westlake looks over his shoulder again, his tongue going around his teeth before he spins around, flicks his nose with his thumb, and sits down on the bench across from her. He folds his hands together, mirroring her, and tries to stare her down. After a moment, realizing she's not going to waver in the least, he looks around her. "Where's Ricky?"

She contemplates letting him stir, letting him worry, but she settles on a neutral answer. "He's not here."

Damian lets his head fall forward as he shakes it, "Where is he?" He asks quickly. She knows for a fact that he hasn't visited him since he's been here.

"Why would you care, Damian?" She asks back, keeping her voice low and controlled.

His eyes narrow a bit as his body freezes. "Look, say what you want about me but Ricky was my friend."

"Some friend you turned out to be." She retorts, starting to lose control over her tone.

Damian leans forward and shoves his finger into the table. "Hey, I believed in him!"

" _You used him!"_ She shouts loudly, stopping to hear her voice echo and shake off the concrete walls and wired glass of the empty visiting room. "He defended you, Damian." She continues in a low, edged voice. "Right up until the very end. He told me to trust you and he believed... he believed in you, that you weren't the person I was making you out to be. He went out of his way to prove your innocence and prove me wrong because he believed in you so much, and you..." She stops to take in a shaky breath, "you betrayed him. Finding out that the one person he owes his life to turns out to be just like everyone else... it broke his heart."

Damian shakes his head again and looks back at her with dead eyes. "Did you just come here to lecture me?"

"No," She answers with a single motion of her head off to the side. "I came here because you're the only person right now that can help me."

Damian looks down to the folder sitting in front of her and rubs his palm across his rough stubble. "What?"

Kate flips open her folder slowly and pulls out a photo of Castle's wrecked car, then a picture of the skeletal remains of Eric Lowery she pulled off the internet, then another picture of the front entrance of Edgewyck Academy.

"What's all this?" Damian asks with a wave of his hand.

"Someone ran my partner off the road last week and managed to shoot him in the shoulder." Damian's eyes flick up to her, filling with panic. "He's alive, just... _barely_ alive. He was found an hour outside of Edgewyck in the woods with no wallet and no phone. The only reason I even knew where he was is because of a nurse who just happened to be a super-fan and knew to call me. Whoever it did this is still gunning for him and just this morning, they nearly killed his daughter."

Damian's body language tightens with nervousness and tension. "W-what uh... what can I do?"

"Whatever he was onto had something to do with the school, and whatever it is, someone wants to keep it under wraps. And I think it has something to do with this man." She says and shoves the picture of the remains of Eric Lowery forward.

Damian takes the photo in his hand and looks it over. "How's this supposed to be?"

"His name was Eric Lowery." She says and waits for his reaction. But after he sets the photo back down and looks at her expectantly, she tries again. "That name doesn't ring a bell?"

Damian shakes his head again, "Should it?"

"He went to Edgewyck Academy, supposedly with you and Castle but we can't find anything on him."

He lets out a breath and looks back down to the photo. "I don't know, he was probably an OB."

"OB? What's that?"

Damian shakes his head again as his eyes drift into memory. "It's short for Orphan Boy." She stays silent but clicks her pen open to take notes and writes down quickly what he just said. "Sometimes, the school would take kids in who were stuck in the foster system. Too old to be adopted and too young to be out of the system, so the school would agree to take them in for kickbacks from the government. There weren't that many of them, but not all of them were all that grateful to be there."

"And Eric Lowery was one of these kids?"

"Probably," he says with a shrug. "I don't remember him."

On a sigh, writing down a few more quick notes, Kate continues. "What more can you tell me about these kids the school would take in? Did any of them ever run away?"

"Maybe once or twice a semester. The ones that did have parents usually got sent back, but the OB's usually made it out. No parents, no ID, if they disappeared, no one knows what happened to them. Most of them were smarter on the streets then we were, so if they got far enough, we figured they'd know how to handle themselves."

"And you're sure Eric Lowery was one of them?" She urges him again, pressing him for answers.

"Like I said," he says in a frustrated voice, "I don't remember him, alright? But if this is him, maybe he got lost when he was sneaking out and... fell or something. Why do you think they were so strict about keeping us on campus?"

"And the school never reported things like this?"

"They did but who did the OB's have to care about them? Look," he stops her and leans forward again, "good students didn't get sent to Edgewyck, okay? Bad ones did. And the dean did what he could to help us out; agree not to call our parents on matters like fights or cheating on tests. Most of us were in enough trouble as it was."

Kate nods to herself and finishes her note. "Can you remember if Castle knew Lowery?"

"Ricky knew everybody," Damian says with a smile. "He was the popular guy, the class clown, he was cool with everybody he could be. He was the same guy back then as he is now. Only difference is woman would show him their chest just to show him their chest, not because they wanted him to sign it, if you know what I mean."

Gritting her teeth and shelling off her heart at that, she ignores every emotion she can and continues in her questioning. "What about enemies? Did he have anybody who didn't like him?"

"I said he was popular, that doesn't mean everybody liked him." Kate looks back up at him, silently telling him to clarify. "Look, I don't know any names, alright!" Damian shouts as he leans back and tosses his arms out. "I'm trying to help out here. If I could tell you anything else, I would!"

Frustrated, Kate takes back her photos and slaps them back into her folder haphazardly, snapping it closed and standing back up. "Why do I feel like this has been a giant waste of my time?" She muses out loud.

By the time she's back on her feet, Damian is speaking again. "Look for his yearbook."

Kate stops and turns back to face him sideways. "His yearbook?"

"If you're looking for Ricky's enemies, look in his yearbooks."

"Why?"

"He was the funny guy, remember? At the end of every year, he'd only get the people he knew didn't like him to sign his yearbook. Some of them were... more honest than he expected them to be. If they'd be anywhere, they'd be in his yearbooks."

Kate looks into Damian's expression for honesty, and after a moment of watching him look between her and the table, she nods. "I will."

* * *

Kate's on her phone with Ryan by the time she's stopping in front of the loft. "I just have to stop by the loft and see if I can find his yearbooks, then I'll be back up there as soon as I can. I should be back by six."

"Javi and I are just finishing up at the station here. Canvas didn't turn up much, and we haven't gotten a hit from the description of the truck. We have a list of people that are licensed to do work for the police around here but we need a way to narrow it down."

"I'll grab Castle's yearbooks and be back up there. But Ryan, you and Javi get back to our hotel and don't let them out of your sight, okay?" Kate demands as she's walking past the doorman.

"Yeah, they've been at the hospital all day with Castle. We'll pick them up on our way."

"Thanks." She says quickly and hangs up, slipping her phone back into her pocket. Going to her set of keys he left her, she unlocks the door to the loft, opening it swiftly, but stops when she hears the quiet hit her with more force than she was prepared for.

She's drifting inside by the time the memories of this place are starting to loom over her. It's like at any moment, she'd see him walking out of his office to greet her with that boyish, all too excited smile shining across his face. She can still feel her lips want to tense at the feeling of her fighting the smile that always wants to break out across her own face when she sees it. Castle has a way of making this place feel like home to all who enter. Even to her. And it isn't until now that she regrets not coming over enough, just to come over. Just to be friends and to spend time together. She likes spending time with him more than she expects everytime she agrees to it.

Kate is blinking away tears as she's closing the door behind her and briskly walking through the living room and into his office. She stops briefly when she sees his desk, picturing him with his laptop in front of him, writing out those journals that she invaded. It makes her heart ache, thinking of how much time he's dedicated to just thinking about her while he's sat in that chair. Trying her best to ignore it, she quickly goes around his desk and to the bureau behind it, opening up the middle top drawer.

After seeing old picture frames and mementos, she closes it and goes to the far left drawer. After not seeing what she's looking for, she goes to close it until an envelope is sliding forward from the back. Her body sends a cold, nervous sweat across her skin when she sees the name ' _Kate'_ written across it.

 _I ended up writing her a letter, but it quickly turned into something else._ The words ring clearly in her head.

This is the letter he wrote her in case he was never coming back. Those are the words that he wanted her to hear if he never got a chance to say them himself. Her body is trembling as she stares at the envelope, jeering and taunting her as it sits motionless in the drawer of his bureau. Her hand is shakingly reaching down to grab it, but it pauses midway. Every voice in her mind is screaming at her that it's not what she thinks, and that it's not her place to read that letter. He wouldn't tell her all of that. _Tell me what?_ A voice says to her.

She doesn't know how he feels. Not even his journals have told her clearly. There's no real reason to believe that this letter is what she thinks. But still... her hand is aching to reach down and open it. Snapping, her hand reaches down to the drawer and slams it shut. Steadying herself, she kneels down and opens the bottom cabinet, luckily, seeing a line of four hardcover, green and yellow books. Pulling the first out and seeing the familiar seal of Edgewyck Academy, she takes all four and carries them out of his office, putting the image of her name neatly scrawled across the envelope as far out of her mind as she can manage.

She's invaded his privacy enough in the name of this investigation as it is. And now, she has somewhere to start, and hopefully, these books will yield a lead.

Kate's back on the road north in a matter of minutes, rushing back to see the family she promised to look after.

* * *

 _A/N: Next two chapters will be pretty case heavy now that Ryan and Espo are in the picture. But the end of the chapter after next will have something you've all been waiting for. :)_


	14. Chapter 14

The next morning, just after eight thirty, there's a rapid knock on Kate's hotel room door as she's zipping around trying to gather her things to head out to meet Ryan and Esposito. "What is it?" She calls through the door, standing at the table gathering notes.

"Kate, it's me, can I come in?" Alexis asks.

"Yeah, come in, Alexis." Kate answers back and closes her folder, stuffing it into her small shoulder bag. Alexis opens the door in a casual looking cargo jacket. What catches Kate's attention is that she looks like she's headed somewhere. "You need something, bud?" Kate asks, keeping the tone between them light as she rushes to gather her notes still sprawled around the hotel room.

"I just wanted to know when we were leaving for the police station." Alexis says all too casually and paces her way through the door.

"What?" Kate stops her, fruitlessly.

Alexis smiles and shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah, I had some thoughts on what could have brought Dad up here. I thought we could talk about them on our way."

"Alexis," Kate starts on a thick sigh, writing down another quick note down on her whiteboard, "I can't have you there. I'm sorry."

She can see Alexis double-take at her, seeing if she heard her right. She was hoping that this conversation would be one that they could have had silently, through minced words and facial ticks. That's the way it is with her father, and it works wonders for them. "What? What do you mean?"

Kate shoots her another quick look and darts back across the room. "Alexis, you almost got killed yesterday. Me taking you to the school with me is probably what made you a target in the first place. It's my fault."

"But Kate, if not for me, you might not have gotten the information that we did." The teen tries again.

But Kate has thought about this too much and has made her decision too solidly in her mind. She can't come. "And I appreciate what you did, Alexis, I really do. But the fact still remains that it made you a target, just like your dad. Which is why I've agreed to have Officer Cody look after you today. You can either do your school work here or at the hospital. But I've instructed him not to let you out of his sight."

It was painful saying it, lecturing her like that. But she almost failed her partner yesterday. A second too late, and he would have had to wake up to only to want to die all over again. She won't be responsible for him losing his daughter. She won't ever have to be the one to give him that news. Alexis is stone silent for a long moment as Kate searches through her notes again. "I'm not a child, Kate."

Letting out a breath in not wanting the conversation to turn this direction, she tries to harden the emotions telling her this isn't her place. "That's not the point, okay? You almost got killed yesterday because I let you help me with the investigation."

"I'm _fine,_ alright? Now let me help you." _She's being just as difficult as Castle would be if I were to tell him this,_ Kate thinks as she's stopping in her darting around her room.

"I can't, Alexis." Kate says firmly and turns to face her, putting a hand on her hip and finally taking in Alexis' angrily knitted brow. "I know that you want to help and I appreciate it, but your place right now is with your father and grandmother, okay?"

"Someone out there wants my dad dead and I need to find out why, Kate."

"That's not your job, Alexis. It's mine." Kate says, wanting every word out of her mouth to end the conversation. She's hating this exchange more and more with every angry look Alexis is giving her. When she shakes her head as if not believing what she's hearing, Kate continues. "Now please, let me do what I'm supposed to so you can do what you're supposed to. That's final, okay? You're not coming with me." She says and turns away, continuing to gather her things.

And it's a long moment of tense silence between the two before Alexis is speaking in a sharp, jagged tone. "You're not my mother, Kate."

Hearing it hurt, it's what she's been telling herself for the past few minutes, but hearing it come from the girl who just a yesterday had completely accepted her in her life hurt deeply. But Kate stops and looks Alexis calmly, "I'm not trying to be your mother, Alexis. I'm trying to be your friend."

Alexis is firing back with more fury in her tone that she has before, probably in a tone that even her father has yet to hear from her. "By keeping me off this? Kate, I have to do this, okay? This is my dad we're talking about! And someone is-"

" _Alexis!"_ Kate shouts with her eyes burning, her tone soiled and emotional. Alexis stops in her words and her twisted expression falls instantly. "I know better than _anyone_ what you're going through right now and I'm here to tell you... it doesn't make anything any better."

Alexis blinks rapidly and takes a shuffling step forward. "But-"

"No," Kate shakes her head, "believe me. I know that you want to go after this and run this down because you feel you owe it to your father err... or you feel he somehow might be disappointed in you if you don't, but throwing caution to the wind and running this down isn't what you need to be doing right now."

"Then what am I _supposed_ to do then?" Alexis asks on a frustrated shrug.

"Go sit with your father, Alexis. You're very lucky... because unlike my mother, your dad is still alive and he's going to be okay." She says, unable to blink away her welling eyes.

"Stop saying that, okay? They don't even know if he'll remember who I am when he wakes up. The brain damage could-"

"Hey," Kate stops her, finally finding the nerve to reach out and put a hand on the girl's arm, "he's alive... and he's going to be okay. And when he does wake up, he's going to want to see his daughter, exactly the way he left her, okay? And that won't happen if I let you chase this down. So please, Alexis... go be with your family and let me do it instead."

Alexis gazes over at Kate, his lips still wanting to rebut and argue, but her eyes soft and accepting. After a long moment, she nods. "Okay."

* * *

Kate glances down at her phone as she's heaving her bag through the front door of the police station. It's relatively cramped and quiet, but neatly arranged and calm compared to what she's used to. Seeing the text she received from Officer Cody, saying they arrived safely at the hospital, she breathes a small sigh of relief that relieves nothing inside herself and stops at the reception window.

The man behind the counter clearly recognizes her and lifts his hand, motioning her through with her hand still on her badge clipped against her waistline. Silently complying, she heads inside, finding Esposito in a white button-up and tie with his badge hanging from his neck and his phone in his hand. "Espo!" Kate calls and quickly makes a beeline for him.

"Yo, Beckett," Esposito waves her over into the conference room toward the left, looking over a slew of empty desks and quiet phones. Kate makes it no secret she's wondering where everybody is as she's stepping up to her friend from New York. "Looks like everyone's out on beat, and all the higher-ups are in their offices dealing with the political tornado we hit them with." He informs with a smirk.

"Really?" Kate asks, leaning in to make it just between them.

"Both the governor of Vermont _and_ the Mayor were on the phone with the good captain, telling him how things are."

Kate shakes her head and looks toward the corner office, seeing Captain Morgan leaning over his desk with his phone to his ear, holding his forehead. "I tried to warn them. If they just listened, none of this would've happened." She brags out loud.

Esposito sighs loudly in front of her, then waves her inside the conference room. "We're all set up in here. I was about to get Ryan on the line."

Kate steps inside and sees a whiteboard sitting at the head of a long table that's void of chairs, already lined with familiar photos and notes that she's already committed to memory. Her own murder board at her hotel is much more detailed, with lines of thought and questions she needs answered. This is just the facts as they are. And standing silent in the corner of the room is Officer Thomas, who gives her a friendly smile as she enters and sets her bag down with a thump on the floor. "Ryan's not here?"

"Nah, he's up at the school looking through their files for Lowery. He's gonna call us when he finds it." Esposito says and sets his phone down on the table. "You have someone staying with Alexis and Martha?" He asks after a pause in the room.

"Yeah," Kate says on a sigh, "they're at the hospital with Castle now. I told Cody to give me hourly updates on Alexis while she's there." She admits, rubbing her palms down her thighs in a nervous tick.

"With the way he was looking, I'm amazed you can pull her away at all." Espo says as he's moving toward their murder board. He shakes his head to himself and turns away from her. "I've seen my fair share of friends in bandages but... seeing Castle like that, it..."

"Hit home, I know." Kate finishes for him. "Alexis wanted to come and help, but I told her that her place was with her family. She took it as any teenage girl would, so I'm doing something _my_ dad probably wanted to do to me and have a cop follow me around everywhere I go."

"You really afraid she'll make a break for it?" Espo asks her as if she's crazy for even making the suggestion.

"No, I'm afraid she inherited more than just Castle's smile, that's what I'm afraid of. And since when does Castle listen to me when I tell him to back off of something?" She asks rhetorically, turning around and going to her bag on the floor.

Kate opens her bag and pulls out Castle's yearbooks, setting them down in front of her on the table and spreading them out. "Ah ha ha ha..." Esposito snickers to himself as he grabs the first yearbook he can reach. "Castle's yearbooks." He grins devilishly.

"Espo, those are here for evidence. Not for us to look for material to blackmail my partner with." She says, attempting half-heartedly to get the book back, simply leaning over the table slightly.

"What," Espo says and cracks the spine of the dark green book, "you can't tell me you're at least curious as to what our boy looked like back then. Even Castle had to go through an awkward phase."

Biting the inside of her lip, after a minute of watching Esposito flip through pages, she caves only slightly. "Page twenty-three."

Still chuckling at the thought of Castle's ugly-duckling phase, he quickly flips to the page and searches the photos with his finger and an open smile of childing anticipation. She can see the moment in his features when he finds Castle's picture as his face falls flat. The book drops down to the table with a clatter after seeing Castle's handsome features smiling on the page, just younger and more childish than they are now. "You've got to be kidding me." He hisses and paces away.

Kate bites back her smile and grabs the yearbook from across the table and sets it back with the others. "So, I've already looked through the books, trying to see any signatures that stuck out."

"You find anything?" Officer Thomas asks, his first words as he inserts himself into the conversation between the two detectives.

"Well," She breathes and leans back with her hand on her waist and another pushing her hair back, "there were a lot of people that didn't think as highly of Castle as we did, that's for sure. But we still need a way to narrow it down."

"Lowery in there?" Espo asks.

"No, I'm guessing that he and Castle were either friends or just didn't know each other."

As she's finishing getting the words out, Esposito's cell phone is ringing on the surface of the table. He reaches down and presses the speaker icon. "Ryan, you're on speaker."

"Hey guys, I'm in the storage of the school. It took me a while but I managed to find the files from 84 to 88, I just pulled Castle's file." He says over the sound of moving papers and shuffling files. "Did you know Castle's name used to be Rodgers?"

"What's the file say, Ryan?" Kate asks firmly, getting him back on track. "Any mention of Lowery?"

"Uhh..." Ryan trails off and searches through the file on the other end of the line, "No, records clean other than a few visits to the dean's office for acting up. There is something in here about a cow, but... no, no mention of Lowery."

"What about Lowery's file, did you find that?" Esposito asks, uncapping the marker at the whiteboard.

"Yeah, it's uh..." Ryan trails off and searches, "right here. Sent to Edgewyck in 85 after being taken in from the foster system. No mention of any family history, looks like he would stay in the dorms over the summer after the school started keeping them open for the kids they took in with nowhere else to go. But," Ryan continues as the sound of him turning over pages next to the phone hits the other end, "there was an incident about fight on the night of Marth 12, 1987."

"Castle's junior year." Kate thinks out loud.

"It lists Lowery as being the victim. He said that he was attacked by four other students, but doesn't give any names. He said they surprised him outside of the dorms that night. From the report, he was in the hospital for a few days. They must've done a number on him."

"He didn't give any names?" Esposito asks, his marker still at the ready. "I understand not being a snitch, but come on."

"No, no names. It looks like he disappeared right before school let out for the summer of that year. They probably thought he ran away after the fight, thinking he was scared."

"Ryan, does Castle's file mention the fight that occurred that night?" Kate asks, a train of thought taking off from its station with hopes of getting somewhere.

"Uhh..." He groans as he makes no attempt to hide the sound of him going back and forth through a pile of papers. "No, the only thing that happened around that time was he reported another student for..." Ryan trails off, the next time his voice is heard, with more purpose and thought. "On Marth 15, 1987, he reported another student by the name of Steven Kapowski for being involved in a violent altercation on campus a few days before."

"Wait," Espo interrupts and turns around, "so _Castle_ reported the guys that beat up Eric Lowery that night? He must have been friends with him."

"Steven Kapowski?" Kate asks the phone sitting down on the table as she reaches down and snatches up the yearbook Ryan had, of 1986 through 87.

"Yeah, Steven Kapowski. I'm looking for his file now." Ryan says.

"What've you got, Beckett?" Esposito asks.

She turns to one of the last pages and puts her finger down onto a note scrawled out in the middle. "A Steven K. signed his yearbook that year. 'If I see you outside of graduation, I'll make you regret going to the dean'."

"Got it." Ryan's voice calls from a ways from the phone.

"Is there a Steven Kapowski on the list of licensed dealers you got?" Kate asks Esposito, whose quickly writing out the name on the whiteboard.

"I don't know, he's the one that pulled it." He answers and points to Thomas on the other side of the conference room.

Kate's eyes whip over to Thomas, whose still standing in the corner quietly with his hands hanging out of his pockets. "Do you know of a Steven Kapowski here in town?"

Thomas thinks for a moment, his eyes focusing and brow furrowing, and after a moment, he nods widely. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I know a Steve Kapowski. He makes a living buying and selling cars and doing odd jobs here and there. Mostly mechanical. He rents out a small shop here in town."

"It says," Ryan continues as he reads from the file of their new suspect, "he was involved in the fight with Eric Lowery, but up until then, he was a good student, got straight A's. But when the dean caught word of it, it looks like they expelled him, but allowed him to participate in the graduation ceremony, and a full detail of what happened that night would go on his permanent record. It says he and three of his friends cornered Lowery one night and beat him. He claimed it was because Lowery stole something, but... sounds fishy to me."

"I got it here," Esposito says from a laptop in front of him. "Kapowski has a record. Divorced in 99 from his wife after a long list of domestic disturbances, a few arrests for drunken and disorderly, citations for making threats."

"Yeah, Steve's a pretty angry guy, but... b-but you don't think he could have done this, do you?" Thomas asks her as he nervously shifts his weight in the corner of the room.

"We'll find out." Kate says and straightens her spine, putting everything together in her mind. "Thomas, where can we find this guy?"

"This time of day? He should be at his shop here in town."

"Okay, Esposito and I will bring him in. Ryan, I want you to meet Officer Thomas as Kapowski's home and see what you can find."

"Got it, Boss." Ryan says and disconnects the line.

"Thomas, I want you to go to Kapowski's address and wait for Ryan. Don't do _anything_ until Ryan gets there, okay? Go." Once the words are out of her mouth, the young officer darts out of the room. "Now let's go get this son of a bitch." Kate spits as she's darting out of the room with Esposito.

"So, what's the plan?" He asks as he practically jogs to keep up with her long strides.

"This guy tried to kill my partner, Javi, he's lucky my plan doesn't involve me killing him."

* * *

 _A/N: All will be revealed in the next chapter._

 _Well, maybe not all. Or will it? (Loud gasp and dramatic turning music)_


	15. Chapter 15

"This is _definitely_ our guy." Esposito drawled as she shuts off the ignition to the police cruiser the station lent them.

Kate is silently committing herself to ending this. Glancing down at the mug shot Esposito has up on the screen in the car, with a driven heart and body that's aching to vent the rage simmering inside of her. He's a dark, unkempt looking man; just the kind of man that emits nothing but darkness, a man that only takes. Attempting to take the life of her partner and giving her nothing but more suffering in her life. Fighting for herself, making it her battle and her war is one thing, but this is his battle she's fighting. It's making her want to push harder than she knows she has to.

They have their guy, he's right through that steel door, and all they need to do is bring him in and yell a confession out of him.

"Javi, you go around back. I've got a feeling this guy's a runner." Kate orders in a low voice as she rips her seatbelt off and steps out of the police cruiser. He nods with a soldier's seriousness and climbs out of the passenger side, jogging across the street with quickness. Kate takes one last breath before she drains herself of all emotion, deepening the determined shell around her heart. There's a picture playing underneath it of her partner's broken body, lying motionless in a hospital bed he was never meant to fall asleep in. It wills her, seeming to be the only thing right now.

Kate whips open the loud, rusty door beside the closed bay door next to it, seeing the large open space of the mechanic shop empty with the walls and countertops littered with greasy tools, used shop rags, and unorganized nuts, bolts, and washers strewed about. A man with wild, stringy hair, standing no taller than five foot seven, comes walking around the corner with a lit cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. She recognizes him immediately and her blood fires with rage.

"Steven Kapowski?" Her voice echoes loudly off the walls of the shop.

The cigarette falls from his mouth as Steven grapples with the air in front of him before taking off away from her, running toward the back as best he can. Kate, being in nowhere near the mood to be toyed with any longer, takes off after him. Her suspect is shoving open the back door, the bright sunlight outside briefly blinding her but she sees the outline of Kapowski turn off to the left as he's running out the door. She's just planting her foot to change her direction when she sees Esposito raising his forearms in front of him, knocking Kapowski to the ground with a scowl.

Their suspect groans as his back hit the ground. "Where you running to, huh?" Esposito is taunting as he grabs Kapowski by the arm and violently turns him over and pulls his wrists back with a quick jerk.

"I didn't do anything. Get off me!" Kapowski argues as Esposito is yanking him off the ground.

"So you're running for cardio, is that it?" Kate taunts back, saying the first words that she thinks would come from Castle's mouth right about now.

Esposito twists the handcuffs tighter around Kapowski's wrists, making him hiss loudly through his teeth. "Not so tight!"

But Esposito is leaning in over his shoulder with clenched teeth. "You tried to kill a brother of mine, Kapowski. You're lucky you can still walk to the car. Come on!"

* * *

They've been back at the police station for close to an hour now, letting their suspect stew in Brattleboro's one small interrogation room, little more than a broom closet with a table and a camera installed in the corner of the room. Kate just received a text message from Ryan, saying that he's met Thomas outside of Kapowski's home and is beginning his search. Kapowski running is cause enough to be probable. Esposito is in the conference room, digging through what he can find on his life, but what she's heard from Officer Thomas is enough.

She feels another picture cloud her mind, not of him lying in the hospital, but of him running through the woods, scared and alone, trying to escape the man behind that door. About how she wasn't there to protect him, wasn't there to save him, tell him he has people in this world that care and depend on him too much to have him go off and do something like this. She's still never gotten the chance to just sit down next to him. Even the last time she tried, she ended up breaking up with her boyfriend.

"You want to take it together?" Esposito breaks her out of the whirlwind of thoughts she's caught in.

Kate adjusts her crossed arms and looks over to him. "No," She rejects him sternly, putting her focused gaze back on the door in front of her. "I'm doing it alone."

Silently understanding her, as they all do when they're on her turf save for Castle, he nods, averts his eyes, and hands her the dark tan folder in his hand, containing Kapowski's record. She clutches it with a talon-like grip, waiting for Esposito to disappear back down the hall. Once he's out of sight around the corner, she steps forward and pushes open the door to the small interrogation room, a small steel table about half of the size of the one she's used to sitting adjacent to the wall, with two small chairs on either side, the one to the right already being occupied.

"Why'd you run, Steve?" She asks him, her tone almost shrill as she forces casualness.

Her suspect sniffs and readjusts himself in his chair, looking anywhere but at the woman who just walked through the door. "I know who you are." He says in a guttural voice, picking at the dirt under his fingernails. "You're that lady cop looking into what happened to that _prick,_ Rick Rodgers."

 _Off to a great start,_ she pictures Castle muttering, seeing the playful smirk that would bloom across his face. "His name," She says, using most of her mental energy to keep her volume level while pulling out a printed photo of Castle's broken, coma-induced body, slapping it down to the table with enough force to make it rattle, "is Richard Castle."

Kapowski doesn't even look at the photo and simply waves his hand in the air, turning to face the wall next to him. "Yeah, yeah, Mr. big shot writer. Son of a bitch deserved whatever he got." He quips angrily and crosses his arms, slumping over in his chair.

Physically biting back her voice to keep from what feels like screaming, she continues as best she can. "I take it you know him, then." She prods in a low, held-back tone. When Kapowski doesn't move to even answer her, she snaps, slamming her palm down against the table next to the picture of Castle. " _Look_ at him, Steve!"

He jumps in his chair and his eyes immediately find the picture of her partner. Seething through flaring nostrils, she stares him down and looks into his eyes as they remain glued to the picture in front of him. "Yeah," he says, looking up at her with a dead expression. "Yeah, I know him. We went through high school together. And it's because of him that I'm even _in_ this stupid town."

"So, is _that_ why you ran him off the road?" She asks him, not giving him any time to gather up a response. "Why you chased him down with a gun and tried to kill him?" She can feel her anger start to turn to hot tears stinging the back of her eyes. "Why you hunted him down like an animal and left him in the woods to _die?!"_

"Wha..." Kapowski tries, feigning being stunned. "What the hell are you talking about? It was a car crash!"

"Richard Castle was found in the woods, unconscious, barely alive, with a _bullet wound_ in his shoulder." She angrily clarifies and slaps down another photo of Castle's torn and bloodied shirt, focusing on the holes left by the bullet that ripped through him.

"Well, I didn't do that!" Kapowski shouts, pushing the photos in front of him away as he leans forward and crosses his arms again.

"Then why did you run, Steve?"

"You're a cop! I do lots of business that I'm not supposed to anymore."

Ignoring his petty crimes for the one she's after, she pulls out the chair across from him and sits down, folding her hands together. "March 12, 1987. Does that date ring a bell?"

She can tell that it does and that his mind is replaying the events of that night, whatever they are. "Where'd you hear about that?" He warns her, asking her in a question that tells her she shouldn't continue, that she found a shatterpoint in his armor.

And it's a shatterpoint that she dives directly into. "The night of Marth 12, 1987, you and three others beat another kid named Eric Lowery so bad he was sent to the hospital for two days. Why?" Her tone is direct, confident, strong... but it's her partner that would make her feel all of it. Right now, she feels like she's acting. " _Why,_ Steve?!" She asks again.

He looks over at her with a knit in his crusty brow, "That filthy little OB didn't belong there and he knew it."

"So you beat him half to death because he didn't come from money, is that it?"

Kapowski scoffs and shakes his head. "Lowery had it coming, and he had it coming for a long time. What we did might have even done him some good if he hadn't of run away." He glosses over the facts with a shake of his head. "Word was getting around the dorms that that OB was pitching for the wrong team. So... we handled it." He minces his words and looks down to his lap, almost in shame.

Kate narrows her eyes and replays what she just heard over in her head. "You beat Eric Lowery that night because he was gay? That's it?"

Kapowski comes back swinging his defense, tossing his arms out to his sides and raising his voice. "We were teenagers! We didn't know any better!" Kate stops her interrogation and lets her suspect hang himself instead. He lets out a breath and sinks back down into his chair. "Lucky for us, Lowery was smart and said he wasn't going to turn us over to the dean."

"But Castle did."

"That son of a bitch was that OB's roommate. Should have known Mr. Popular would get it out of him. Dean expelled us when he found out. Only way I was able to attend graduation was because I agreed to make an apology in front of him with Lowery. But after that, the colleges that _had_ accepted me dropped me, didn't want anything to do with me. And apparently, that was the last straw for dear old dad, and he ran off with his mistress and left us with nothing. My mother drank herself to death after he left. And now, that summer job I had fixing cars is what I'm stuck doing for a living."

"And you blame all of it on Castle." Kate finishes for him.

"You're god damn right." Kapowski almost brags. "But I didn't do any of this, alright?" He defends himself weakly, waving at the pictures in front of him. "If you ask me, it's probably karma catching up with him."

"You call it _karma_ for turning you in for beating another student half to death just because he was gay?"

"I didn't do it! And before you ask, I don't know what happened to Lowery either. I didn't even hear he ran off until Rodger's came up and had my sign his damn yearbook."

"Then where were you last Tuesday night?" She demands, watching as he crosses his arms, still cursing her partner under his breath.

Kapowski looks back up at her and shrugs his shoulders. "I don't remember. I was at home, probably, drunk."

"And yesterday morning between eight-thirty and ten." She demands again, asking for his alibis.

"At my shop waiting for work to show up." He answers in a raised tone, sounding annoyed at this point.

Kate lets out a short breath and looks down to her hands, before shooting another glaring look over at her suspect, who's resigned to his innocence. "Here's what I think happened, Steve." That gets her his eyes, dark and unforgiving of his actions. "Castle saw a news report about the remains of Eric Lowery being found in the woods outside of Edgewyck and he comes to confront you about it. He asks you if you killed him to finish the job and dumped his body in the woods. You two get into it and he tells you he's coming back with someone who can prove that it _was_ you who killed Lowery."

"That never happened." Kapowski shakes his head.

"So you follow him and you ram him from behind with your truck. He outruns you but he loses control and crashes. You catch up to him and shoot him, but he runs off. You think he's dead and leave him to bleed out- _alone!"_ She shouts.

Kapowski crosses his arms defensively and looks back up at her. "You got no proof of any of it, lady. I want a lawyer."

Gritting her teeth, Kate takes the folder in her hand and stands up, heading the short distance between the table and the door to interrogation. She feels as if she's failed. She doesn't have the proof she needs, she didn't get her confession, she feels no closer to solving this than she was when she started... and she's let down the man she cares about. Pushing open the door with frustrated force, she stomps out into the hall and flings the door closed. As she comes to a stop in the empty hallway, she can feel a shroud of loneliness envelope her.

It's a loneliness she hasn't felt in a long time. Since before she met him. Her life before him seemed so far away before all this happened. But now, it's a life she felt she's lost. She remembers this loneliness, masking itself as safety and solitude, when really all it is is the place where she can be comfortable in her own way of doing things. It was Castle that broke her of it, of her set way of doing things and of her bad habits. And those ways are ways she doesn't want to go back to. She can't fail now. Not now, this can't be it.

Kate feels her cell phone vibrate in her pocket a single time. Swallowing her emotions, she digs it out and taps on the message Ryan sent to her. _Found the truck at Kapowski's home in the back. Shell casings still on the floor. He's our guy._

A wave of almost joyful tears floods through her lashes, jumping from her eyes as she looks at the picture of the black, darkened truck on the screen. She pushes her phone back into her pocket and spins around on her heel, flinging open the door and yanking Steven Kapowski out of his chair by the arm. "Ow, hey!"

She can't bring herself to let up at the mixture of joy she feels in finally having him and the anger she tastes along with it in what this man has done. She's already twisting a pair of handcuffs around him again before he can pointlessly argue with her. "Steven Kapowski, you're under arrest for the attempted murder of Richard Castle."

* * *

 _A/N: Moment I was talking about didn't quite make it into this chapter. I was going to add it in, but I need to make it a bit more believable, need to add a few things. Don't want to make it feel rushed. It would have otherwise._

 _Next chapter FO SHO!_


	16. Chapter 16

Kate is sitting in a chair across from Alexis and Martha, who've prepared a hot meal, for her mostly, back at the hotel. She hasn't been eating all that regularly with so much of her time and energy spent on closing this case, watching after her partner, and his family. But now, Martha is starting to mother hen with Kate, as she has been in all the wrong facets with Alexis the past week or so.

"So, it's really over?" Alexis asks as they all realize they've finished eating.

Kate nods with a smile, not even attempting to hide the worry in the back of her mind. "Yeah, it's over, Alexis. We have a CSU team going through Kapowski's home and his shop, looking for any more evidence, but the truck is a slam dunk. He's the guy." She says with a heavy smile. Once things died down and cooled off, she started to look at things again, probably harder than she needed to.

"All this because my son did the right thing?" Martha asks, leaning over the table.

"It seems so," Kate answers. "Kapowski didn't even try to hide his dislike for Castle. So he made his motive pretty clear."

"But he still says he didn't do it?" Alexis asks, asking the same questions Kate's been asking herself ever since Kapowski was thrown into Brattleboro's lock-up.

"We didn't get a confession, no. But the truck that I saw the shooter use yesterday is the same one that was at his home, and it still had the spent shell casings of a nine millimeter on the floor and the seat of the passenger side from where he fired from the driver seat." She explains to them, looking down to her lap in thought. The things her mind is saying are the things she would expect to hear from her partner at this stage in the investigation. That just, overall, something just seemed off. "But," She silences them with her own voice, the things she would say to him in response, "we have enough evidence to hopefully tie him to running Castle off the road and trying to kill you." She nods over to Alexis. "So, Kapowski is the guy."

"Oh," Martha breathes, putting a hand on her chest in relief, "I am so relieved that this whole awful thing can be over."

"Yeah," Kate chuckles and looks down to her lap. "Me too."

"Well, Katherine," Martha starts by standing up and picking up her's and Alexis' plates, "will you be heading back to the city right away?"

Kate looks up and smiles heavily again at her as Martha heads into the kitchen with their dishes, "No, Martha. I'm going to stay until Castle's back on his feet."

"You don't have to, dear. Alexis and I can more than manage on our own, especially now that the case is over with." Martha argues with her, coming back to the dining table.

A part of her feels as if she's being shoved away, now that her actual job in catching killers is finished, she's not really needed, therefore not really wanted. But she wants to be here for him too much to take that part of herself too seriously. "No, Martha." She argues back with a gentle smile. "Kapowski didn't confess and there's still some evidence we need to make sure he's put away."

"Ah, well," Martha continues and fans her hands out in the air before coming to sit back down next to Alexis, "I'm sure Richard would be heartbroken if you weren't there when he wakes up."

Alexis chuckles softly, "Yeah, he'll probably ask you to bust him out of the hospital if they ask to keep him overnight or something."

"After all," the elder continues and crosses her legs, "as far as I'm concerned, Richard's been treating you like a member of this family for quite some time now."

She can see the insecurity and hesitancy in Alexis' eyes as the shift and wander around the hotel room, avoiding Kate across the table. Kate's shooting her down and having to play the role as an actual guardian for her is probably still leaving the teen with a weird taste when it comes to their relationship.

Kate nods after a moment and starts picking at the edge of one of her nails. _Why were the papers on the truck missing, and the licence plate? If Kapowski was planning on ditching the truck, why leave it at his home?_. "Kate?" Alexis calls her, breaking her out of her thoughts. She looks over the table with a heavy smile toward Alexis, giving her her full attention. "Is something wrong?" She asks in a small voice.

"No," She quickly rejects the notion, "no, nothing." Kate dismisses it and looks back down to her lap.

Martha, obviously having noticed, adjusts herself in her chair and prods along with her, "What is it, Katherine?"

Kate pushes out a breath and feels her insides tighten. "It's just that this is usually the point where Castle would find something that I missed. Something that... something that seemed obvious but I somehow let slip by me. Without him here to help me, I... I just can't feel sure of myself right now." She laments, feeling small under the unevenness of insecurity. The more its tested, the more it's like with Castle not here with her, she has no solid ground. Like he was that solid ground she used to feel as sure of herself as she always was. "I just feel like something about this whole thing isn't adding up."

"Well, like what, dear?" Martha pulls it out of her.

"Like why Kapowski went after Alexis when Castle was already in the hospital." She begins, looking up to Martha with what feels like the first honest look she's given either of them. "Or what made him make Alexis a target in the first place. Or why... why if he knew we were going to search his home, he wouldn't confess to the crime. Or what was it about Kapowski that made my own partner so afraid to call me and just tell me about it, I-I..." She trails off and sighs despite herself.

"So... what? You think Kapowski didn't do it?" Alexis asks, leaning over the table with her arms folded.

"No... no, Steven Kapowski is the guy. He has all the motive, the truck was found on his property with signs he was going to get rid of it, his history shows he's mechanically inclined with the skills necessary to do the customized work on the truck and the gun used, and he doesn't have an alibi for the time of the crash _or_ the shooting. Any competent jury would convict him." She tells them, convincing more herself than them. After a tense moment between the three of them, with all the attention on her to continue the conversation, she does, looking back up at them with a smile. "I'm probably just over thinking it, is all."

"Well," Martha cuts in, fanning her hands out beside her, "the man is obviously crazy. And there's no sense in trying to make _any_ sense of a man who clearly has none."

Kate smiles, surprising herself when she feels it coming easy to her with the woman's comment, and nods. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Gram and I are going to wander around town tomorrow, Kate. You want to come?" Alexis offers after Martha heads back into the kitchen with the last set of dishes.

"Actually," She stops her and stands up, "I think I'm going to go to the hospital tomorrow. I haven't really gotten the chance to just- sit with him."

"I've been reading online that people in medically induced comas dream sometimes," Alexis says. "They encouraged me to talk to him while I'm there, but... I don't know, it just doesn't feel right when he doesn't talk back. But they did just take most of his stitches out, so they're hoping they can see some more improvement in his condition soon."

Kate nods, some small glimmer of hope shining into her life at the girl's news. "Well, knowing Castle," She begins and starts meandering toward the door, "he's probably dreaming about something only he can come up with."

Kate stands at the door as Martha is extending her arms to her. "Well, sleep tight. Okay, kiddo?" Kate hugs the woman tenderly, briefly letting herself fall under the spell of a motherly affection, letting down the strong front she's putting on. After a loving squeeze, Martha releases her and then Alexis comes from behind, not giving Kate the chance to reject the motion of her putting her arms around Kate's midsection. Silently, the two hug for a moment, conveying both gratitude and forgiveness for that morning, and separate just as silently as they began.

* * *

Her murder board back at her hotel is still up.

It has more question marks than bullet points, even after several days of pacing in front of it. She thought that if she just thought a little like Castle, that maybe over the years, some of his insight and writer's perspective had rubbed off and she'd come through on her own. But that hasn't happened yet.

It's late on Friday night, over a week since she got the call about Castle in the middle of the night, back when her life seemed a stone's throw away from simple. She had a boyfriend who didn't push her and respected her boundaries, she had a partner who made her already difficult job loads easier, she had been making progress slowly on her mother's case, she had a life and a way of doing things where she could easily stow away those things that were hard to think about otherwise. She had things to distract herself with; like Josh.

But now, her and Josh are broken up, she's on leave from her job until further notice, she's away from her apartment, she's been given responsibility of a life that, just three years ago, she didn't even know existed, her partner is the victim she has to commit her pursuit of justice to, and probably worst of all... she's out of things to distract herself with.

She's tried working the case a bit more, but all that leads to is more questions; like why he felt he couldn't come to her about any of this. Was it that he dealt with the fight by turning them into the dean and not going after them himself, that maybe she'd view him as wimpy or not masculine enough somehow? Was he afraid that since Lowery was gay, she'd start drawing lines where there weren't any? Why didn't he trust her with any of this? She would have helped, no questions asked. Like he's always done for her.

But, since the arrest, she's spent her days at the hospital, the last few times with Alexis and Martha, listening to Alexis narrate some of his books to him. But this Friday night, she's alone. With the arrest, Kate felt comfortable letting them return to the city and pick up some things from Castle's closet for him to wear when he wakes up. They managed to take him off the ventilator this morning, and his body responded well. They gradually lowered the sedative after that. Now, all they can do is wait for him to wake up. The doctor is hopeful, but she's pacing his room with baited breath, not bothering with all the flowers and gifts that have trickled in with the news that Castle is recovering.

Just as she has been for the past twenty minutes.

After looking over to him, seeing his still healing face and bandaged head not having returned his color, she meanders around to his bedside and reaches down to his arm without reserve, laying hand down and gently grasping his arm. _He feels so warm,_ she thinks to herself, feeling a smile tease the outskirts of her lips.

"I know you probably didn't want me investigating this, Castle." She says to him, not looking away from the contact she's making on his arm. "If you didn't call me about it before, I can only guess you didn't want me to know about any of this, but..." She says, feeling emotion start to creep up her throat, "but I need you back."

It's then that her eyes blink hotly and she looks up to his sleeping face, which doesn't respond.

"This is the first time I've had to be on my own without my partner," she tries but corrects herself when she gazes at him, "without you. I can't even be sure of myself anymore. How is it," she continues, sucking in a long, constrained breath and looks up to the ceiling, "that you got me so dependent on you... when I've tried like _hell_ to push you away?"

She knows that this is the only condition he can be in and still be able to say these things to him, when there's no way he'd ever respond.

"I know, I know," She rebuts the continuing conversation in her head while looking down to her hand still on his arm. "I know that I don't know how you feel, but..." Kate looks up to the wall his hospital bed is up against, looking anywhere but where his eyes would be looking at her if he were awake, "why is it that I'm hoping you do feel a certain way about me. I mean, I don't know what was in that letter you wrote me. It could just be meaningless ramblings but..." She trails off, swatting away her spilled tears.

"After all, I don't know what you want. Even your journals didn't really say it. I know you didn't like Josh, but to tell you the truth," She says with a joking smile appearing on her face, "I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual between you two. Maybe... if this were another time or, maybe even another life where things were better, we could be together." The words sound scary as they leave her tongue, putting them in the one context she forced herself not to think about.

"But there's always just... too much in the way, isn't there? We share our first breathtaking kiss and it's only a ruse to get passed an armed guard." She thinks back, still petting her thumb through the soft hair on his forearm. "We fall asleep in each other's arms and it's only because we were stuck in below zero temperatures and passed out. We couldn't have just kissed like normal people, could we?" She chuckles to herself, "Like... after I took you to see Forbidden Planet for the first time, or after we all went out to the Old Haunt after you bought the place."

 _I wouldn't forgive myself if it was me that ended up being the demise of their relationship._

His words and musings from his journals ring in her head at the thought of them sharing these normal kisses. "But, you seem to be more decent and..." Kate rolls her eyes, "morally minded than I ever gave you credit for, so... now I don't think you would have gone through with it, would you?" Kate's devil's advocate breaks through and she shakes her head, "But I don't know if you ever would. After all," Kate digresses and takes her hand off his arm, turning around and pacing back to the chair against the wall, "we're just partners."

With a sigh, slumps down, crosses her legs and takes her coat, draping it over herself and leaning her head uncomfortably back against the wall, closing her eyes and after what seems like minutes, they start to get heavier and she falls asleep.

After a while, she feels herself wake up to the sound of a faint, slight movement. "Hey," A raspy voice beckons.

Kate lifts her head and looks around the room, quickly finding the still body of her partner in bed, with his head turns toward her, his eyes barely open and a faint, tired smile playing across his healing face. "Castle?"

"That looks really uncomfortable." He says in a tired voice.

Her heart soars and she jumps out of her seat, letting her coat fall to the floor as she steps up to his bedside and grabs onto his hand as he reaches for her with his free arm, taking her left hand when she takes his. Her face feels uncontrollable as she gives in to her unabashed smile, looking into his tired, yet alive eyes. "I was beginning to think I'd never see you again." She tightens her grip on his hand while her right hand sneaks past her defenses and reaches over, softly touching the outline of his jaw.

He smiles and looks down to her hand as she feels him begin to play with her fingers. Once his eyes look down, his brow pinches. "Where's your ring?"

"My ring? Wha-" She stops herself, being confused but pulling out her necklace from underneath her white blouse. "It's right here, Castle."

Castle's eyes look up to her necklace, but his brow pinches even more, his eyes flooding with confusion. "What are you wearing that for?"

"Wha..." She thinks, her mind as confused as he's looking. "Castle," she stops him as he looks up to her with a deep worry, looking a little more awake, "you were in a car crash. Don't you remember?"

Castle's body starts to sit up, but stops just after he lifts his head off the pillow. "Car crash?" He asks, looking past her and over to the chair she just lept out of. "Where's Lily?"

Her hand starts to lose it's grip on his hand as his body starts to move and mewl, almost desperately in bed. "Lily?"

"And the boys, are they okay?"

"Ryan and Espo? Yeah, they're fine. Castle, what's going on?"

His eyes stop jolting around the room for a moment before he sits back, freezing himself. "What's going on? What happened?"

His heart monitor sitting next to her starts to beep as he starts pushing and pulling at his sheets. "Rick," She tries, grabbing his hand with her's.

"Where am I? Kate? Kate, where am I?"

The door to his room bursts open as a pair of nurses rush in. "Mr. Castle? Mr. Castle," The nurse starts as she rushes to his bedside.

"Detective Beckett, you need to leave." The nurse next to her says, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her away.

"No, no wait. Rick!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we need you to leave."

"Kate!" His voice says, still trying to regain most of its strength.

The nurse pushes her out of the door, which is swiftly closed in her face.

* * *

 _A/N: How bout that ending, huh? :0 (ending of chapter, not story)  
_

 _The ending scene is actually one of the scenes that got me to start writing this story in the first place. Hope you liked it, nay... loved it! Also, a BIG, GIGANTIC thank you to all those who take the time to read and review. This has been by far my most reviewed story above all my others, with the least chapters. Only 15 chapters and already passed 400 reviews, 300 follows, and 55,000 views. Truly humbled, thank you all! :)  
_


	17. Chapter 17

With her arms crossed, looking passed the doctor in front of her and into his room, Kate shakes her head at the sight of him mutely arguing with Martha and focuses back on to asking the doctor what's going on. "So, he's okay, Doctor?" She asks, breaking her eyes away from him, almost painfully.

The doctor nods, "He's fine, but he's going to be in pain for some time while his bones heal. He'll have to wear a sling for the broken bones in his left shoulder, and he'll have to stick around at least until this afternoon when we can take the stitches out of his head, but other than that... I expect him to make a full recovery." He explains with a gentle smile.

"And," She cuts in, a worry clouding her optimism on his condition, "mentally? Will he be okay mentally?"

"Well," The doctor continues with crossed arms, looking away from her as he thinks, "it is quite common for patients to dream while on sedatives. Some remember entire conversations they may have heard, there've been stories of people waking up having forgotten entire languages, some have woken up to believe they're back in their teenage years. It's quite fascinating, really."

"And this?" Kate asks, nodding over to his hospital room again. "He was asking for my grandmother who's been dead for seven years, Doctor. Did he say what he was dreaming about?"

The doctor's brow raises and his mouth pouts, "It seems, amazingly, that he may have built a fantasy, of sorts. It's a way for the brain to... go somewhere else while the body heals itself. He did ask me to keep it between myself and him once he realized where he was but... if I may, Detective... you seem pretty concerned about it." Her heart squeezes with anxiousness at the doctor calling her out. "May I ask why?"

"Doctor, I've never told him about my grandmother Lily before. I have no clue how he even knew that name." She admits. She's never once mentioned Grandma Lily to him, or her summers spent with her and her grandpa up in Burlington. Unless he somehow got in touch with her dad behind her back and asked about it, but even then, after her mother's murder, her dad and herself lost contact with that side of the family. Grandma Lily was from her mother's side after all, and after she died, her dad couldn't face them.

"In any case, Detective, his memory is mostly intact." The doctor nods again, sending another smile her way.

But his wording catches her attention, knocking her out of her musings. "Mostly?"

"Well, I tried to ask if he remembered the crash, but he can't seem to recall it."

She feels like she just took another giant step backward. Not only has she spent the last week and a half digging through his personal life, even going so far as reading his private journals, trying her hardest to figure out what brought him here, now he either doesn't remember, or is simply lying about everything. She nods without looking back up to the doctor and silently sends him away. After a moment of sending as many negative thoughts away as she can, she looks back up through the window and sees Martha smiling softly, looking over at her son with love radiating from her eyes.

Castle looks tired, a little worried as it shows around the edges of his eyes, but he seems relaxed. "Detective?" A younger male voice calls from behind her.

She turns and finds Officer Thomas coming up to her. "Officer," She says, his first name slipping her mind at the moment, "What are you doing here?"

Officer Thomas looks up through the window of her partner's room for a moment, then back over to her. "I heard that your partner was awake. I came to check and see if he was okay."

Her heart warming slightly, she smiles gently. "That's thoughtful, Officer. I've seen him shake off worse, so I'm sure he'll be fine." She gives him a neutral answer.

"And... and the crash? Can he give us anything else on Kapowski? The guy's lawyering up."

"The doctor said he can't remember anything from the day of the crash, but once he gets out I'll take him to the scene, show him his car, see if it jogs his memory." She nods.

The young officer sends her a slightly nervous smile and chuckles. "Good idea. And uh... if there's anything else you need, you can call me." He offers and extends his hand.

She shakes it tightly and gives him a thankful smile in return. "I will, Officer... I'm sorry, what was your first name again?"

"Kyle, ma'am."

"Kyle," She parrots, "I'll be sure to call you if we get anything."

The officer nods, tips the bill of his hat and goes off back down the hall of the hospital. Letting out a breath of relief, knowing she still has someone on her side after Ryan and Esposito were called back to New York after the arrest was made, she smiles and sees Martha stepping out of Castle's room. She takes the distance between herself and the elderly redhead in three long, excited strides. "Martha."

Martha looks up with a bright, open smile. "Katherine," She breathes and puts her hands on her shoulders, "he was just asking for you."

"How is he?" She asks, hoping to get an honest answer this time, not what they _hope_ his condition might be in due time.

Martha's eyes drift close and gives Kate's shoulders a gentle squeeze before they fall off her. "He's a bit confused, but he's just fine. He's impatient to get released. After all, you know how he feels about hospitals." Martha rolls her eyes, waving her hand in the air.

"And Lily?" Kate continues, drawing Martha's attention back. "Martha, when he woke up, he asked for my grandmother that's been dead for seven years and who I never mentioned to him. I-I'm just a bit confused."

Martha scoffs and rolls her eyes again, "Trust me, darling, you're not the only one." She pats her on the arm again before going back down the hall.

Taking that as a cue of sorts, she takes one last breath, not even trying to untie her stomach, and pushes open the door, hiding her nervous eyes under the veil of her hair. She hears the faint discussion going on between him and his daughter first, and the soft, low rumble of his voice makes her blood flow easier through her veins than she can remember. He audibly stops when she takes a step inside, and she pushes her hair behind her ear before looking up to him.

Once she meets his eyes, his face lifts into a soft, tired smile, his eyes shining and sparkling with just as much life as she can remember them being the last time she saw him. "Beckett," He breathes.

Alexis, whose standing at his bedside with a soft, relaxed smile, looks over to Kate, then back down to her father. "I'll give you a minute, Daddy."

"Okay, pumpkin." He says as he lets his eyes drift closed, moving his bandaged head to the side, letting his daughter plant a loving kiss on his cheek. Alexis quickly makes her way through the room, smiling to her before closing the door behind her. Once the door clicks, she can feel the tension in the room. "I must've done something _really_ stupid."

His quip brings a soft belt of laughter to her, making her double over and a quick fit of giggles and a bright, face-splitting smile. "I don't know yet, Castle. I'm still piecing it together." She jokes back, stuffing her hands into her back pockets.

"Well, it must have been pretty stupid. I haven't gotten this many flowers since I got married to Gina." He continues the light tone, looking around the room at the bouquets lining the room.

Kate chuckles and heads to the first set of yellow flowers sitting on the table near the window. "Have you read the cards yet?"

"No, I'm stuck in this stupid bed."

Kate smiles and pulls out the first card and reads. "I thought castles were made out of bricks and mortar, not pillows and butterflies. That's from the mayor." She says, folding the card back up and placing it back with the bouquet.

"Yeah yeah yeah, let's see _him_ get into a car crash. Then let's see who's laughing." He moans, letting his head rest back against his pillow.

Going for the next card, she unfolds it and reads. "I told you bad things would happen when you killed off your money maker. This is karma if I've ever seen it. That's from Patterson."

"Does everyone have to try to be funny?" Castle rhetorically asks.

But going for the next one, Kate changes her tone. "Get better soon, bro. We're here for you and we all love you, Esposito." She reads with a loving smile.

An equally loving, warm smile lifts his once sullen features, "Aww," He coos.

"P.S. Can I have your Xbox?"

His face falls flat in a flash. "Quite _literally_ over my dead body."

Kate laughs as she folds the card back up and sets it down, making her way over to his bedside. She's still smiling by the time she's leaning against the railing on his bed and looking down at him, seeing him smile gently, gazing up at her. "Listen," he says after a long moment of letting the rest of the world fall away with only his eyes, he looks away and down to his lap, "my mother and Alexis, they uh..." he struggles, and she can hear emotion rising up in his tone, "they told me about everything you did, coming up here and staying with them and watching after them."

Kate feels her heart slither into her throat at his tone, not expecting to have to endure watching him go through being this heartfelt.

"I-I just want to say uhm..." He tries, swallowing thickly past emotion that has long been showing on his face, "just want to say thank you." He tells her finally, looking over at her with struggling eyes. "It means the world, Beckett... really."

Kate fights her smile and looks down, gathering up a neutral answer. "Well, I had nothing better to do, so I thought 'why not look after a seventeen-year-old girl for a while'." That earns her a loud chuckle from her partner. "No, really," She continues, "I made a promise to you to look after her anything ever happened, and I tried my best to keep it."

Castle smiles gently, his eyes far away in thought as he looks down at her hands leaning against the railing.

"So," She continues after a long, silent moment between them, "you don't remember anything from the crash? Getting shot?"

"No," He answers, raising his brow, "last thing I remember I-I was..." she can tell he is correcting himself by the way he shakes his head and swallows his words, "I was sitting in my office writing." Kate nods, not wanting to put too much on his shoulders right now by asking him anything about what he corrected himself on. "What's going on, Beckett? What did I do?" He asks.

His tone sounds desperate, and when she looks over, he isn't hiding the fact that he is. His brow is deeply creased and arched, his eyes seem almost hurt. Kate smiles and gives into her inner voices, reaching down and grabbing his hand tenderly. "Don't worry about it right now, Castle. Just focus on getting out of here, okay?"

* * *

It's later in the afternoon, the Saturday sunlight shining brightly over the quiet town.

She's had the news playing in the background behind her whiteboard still up in her hotel room. Castle was brought back here after a fitful time spent trying to escape the hospital. He's eager for answers, but Martha and Alexis are more eager to get him settled and keep him healthy and make sure he's as happy as he can be than he is for answers. And once those two women have a plan, they make sure it's followed. She could hear them arguing with him, even with Alexis with her voice carrying over to her hotel room when she shouted at him to let her help him.

She feels bad that she wasn't in there to be on his side. She knows how he gets when he feels he's being ganged up on, he gets more flustered and frustrated than he can handle sometimes. But the voices have died down, and it's been quiet for a few minutes. She's buzzing around her hotel room again, gathering a few more notes and trying to clean up the mess she's neglected before he comes over. She told him that she'd take him out and show him the scene to try and jog his memory. She's just folding over her sheets when the door is being knocked on.

Not bothering to finish making the bed properly, she rushes over and opens the door, smiling at the sight of him dressed far more casually than she ever recalls seeing him. He's wearing a blue zip-up hoodie open halfway over a black t-shirt reading ' _Han Shot First',_ a pair of dark denim jeans, white running shoes, and a dark baseball hat pulled over his head, hiding the shaved part of his head where the stitches once were.

"Hey," She greets him with a bright smile.

He smiles lightly and steps inside after she turns around and heads back inside. "Hey," He says in his usual casual tone.

She watches him out of the corner of his eye as he limps slightly on his left side from his still-healing gash on his left leg, his left arm still hanging helplessly in a dark blue sling. "I just have to get a few things then we can go." She rushes and heads to the bathroom.

"Yeah," He mutters, "take your time."

She comes back out with a hair tie, putting her hair back in a low ponytail, still watching him cautiously out of the corner of her eye as she goes to her nightstand and puts a few things in her pockets. He's standing in front of her white board, looking at all the pictures she's taken, the notes she's written, and questions she's asked, along with all the papers she's gathered and people she's talked to. After a moment of staring intently at the board, he goes over to the bureau, where she has his yearbooks laid out, two of them sitting open with sticky notes sticking on faces and names that stick out to her.

Once her things are gathered, she takes a few slow steps toward him. Once the floor creeks under her feet, he turns around to her. "You did all this for me?"

Kate breathes a small chuckle, looking at her whiteboard that's been sitting in her room for over a week, "Yeah, but the case isn't a slam dunk. We got the guy, but there's still some evidence missing."

"Beckett, I-" he says, motioning with his free arm to the whiteboard and then over her room in general, looking back over at her with a creased brow. "I don't know what to say."

Smiling nervously, she lowers her gaze and starts to make for the door. "We should probably get going." Pointing to the door, she quickly passes him.

But she feels herself being grabbed by the arm and pulled backward. She spins back around and before she can react to what's happening, his lips are sealed against her tightly, unreservedly, strongly, and all too passionately. Her hand quickly land against his stomach as she feels her body go limp at the tide of electricity robbing her of her balance. The thought doesn't hit her until the sound of their lips letting go of each other in a soft pluck hits her ringing ears even as she feels herself chase after him, the thought that he just kissed her finally hits her.

 _He just kissed me,_ she repeats in her head.

She flutters her eyes open and sees him looking down to the floor in shame, even as her hands are still laying flat against his abdomen. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that." He tells her in a tight, nervous tone, taking her shaking hands in his and peeling them off himself. She can feel his fingers pinch her ring finger slightly and can see his eyes staring at it with more focus than she can muster right now, her mind still fuzzy and jumbled from his lips.

"W-we uh... we should probably get going."

"Yeah," He mumbles back and lets her hands fall as he limps his way around her toward the door.

* * *

 _A/N: Overwhelmed by the repsonse I got from the last chapter. Glad you liked it! :)_


	18. Chapter 18

"I just don't understand why she's so..." Castle struggles as they pull to a stop outside the impound lot.

"Worried?" Kate finishes for him, looking over to him with a tucked smile as she takes her seatbelt off.

"Exactly," He replies and carefully turns himself out of the passenger side of his own car, slowly climbing out and taking a moment to stabilize himself under his weight. Kate waits for him to join her in step toward the office door of the impound lot as he continues to muse his problems to her. "I mean, I'm back on my feet now." He says with a one-sided shrug.

"Sort of." She retorts and looks ahead.

"Sort of," He agrees, "but still, I was hoping that the day when Alexis would have to take care of _me_ wouldn't come until I was too senile to notice." He finishes and limps his way forward, trying his best to fall into step with her as he always does.

She purposefully slows down her usual long strides to match his slow, steady pace, not wanting to leave him behind. "She's just worried about you, Castle. It took all my energy just to get her to focus on the fact that you were still alive and keep your mother out of her hair as much as I could. The least you could do is indulge her a bit."

Castle purses his lips and shakes his head, "You know, it seems like only yesterday I was the one helping _her_ get dressed. There was an entire month when she was five that all she wore was her little mermaid t-shirt. I had to buy four of them and just cycle them out because she wouldn't wear anything else."

"Little mermaid?" Kate asks him, looking over to him with a quirked brow. He nods in a silent answer, his eyes far away in longing memory. "Let me guess... only Disney princess with red hair?"

"No, she liked the idea of being able to talk to fish."

She has to bite down on her bottom lip to keep her laughter quiet as she pulls open the door. The clerk lets them in and shows them through the door, telling her that it's right where she left it from last week. She lets Castle go ahead of her, giving in to the urge to put a hand on his back to guess him. She can feel him shiver when she lets her hand fall off his back, and can't help but notice the far away sorrow darkening almost painfully in his eyes as he looks down to the graven underneath his slow-moving feet.

She doesn't bother to ask, at least for now. He's been through a lot, she can handle taking on the burden just a little bit longer, most of all for his sake. Pretty much all of the burdens she's taken on with this has been for his sake. She has questions, nagging questions that are giving her darker and darker answers the longer she leaves them unanswered. But right now, she can handle leaving them for now. He's clearly struggling with something.

And their kiss back at the hotel didn't help matters in the least. And just as before, they're back to their old ways of pretending like it never happened.

Kate stays close to him as they reach the crumpled and smashed pile of red and black metal that once was his Ferrari. She can hear him audibly sigh and can even see his already sunken shoulders sink even lower. "I loved this car."

She breathes a soft chuckle and feels her hand want to reach up again, but remembering their kiss, how they just forgot about it, she pulls it back. They've clearly tested the waters together and it didn't happen. She looks down to the ground and shuffles her feet, giving him a moment before asking. "Can you remember anything?"

"Uhm..." He says and twists his face together. She can tell he's trying really hard to remember, the way his brow is furrowing and his eyes are burrowing into the crashed car in front of him, willing it to give him answers that he's not getting. He groans slightly as he visibly grits his teeth. "Agh..." He pinches his forehead.

"It's okay if you don't, Castle. Take your time." She soothes over in a soft voice.

He closes his eyes and gives her a small nod. He takes in a long, deep breath, but it stops and he shakes with pain. Her hand jumps up to help him, but he tightens himself at the pain raises his hand slightly to her. "I was uh..." he begins slowly, his eyes still closed, "I was driving back from somewhere. I had just left but I can't remember from where."

She nods and steps in front of him, gazing into his calmly set expression. "Okay."

"I-I uh... I can remember I was about to get on the phone, but then I felt something hit me from behind. I wasn't paying attention, so I dropped my phone. I-it uh... it gets fuzzy from there." He laments and lets his eyes pop open, staring down to the ground in shame. "I'm sorry, I can't remember anything after that."

"No, hey," She soothes him over again, "you did fine." She says softly, "You were probably trying to call me after you met with Kapowski." She muses.

"Kapowski?" He asks, his voice firm and confused. She looks up and sees his brow pinched and his eyes narrowed. "Steven Kapowski?"

"Yeah, he's the guy we arrested." Castle silently asks her for more details by double-taking his head at her and blinking his tired eyes rapidly. "So, you remember him."

"Steven? From Edgewyck? Yeah, I remember him. He was a complete horses ass, _which_ I turned in to the dean after what he did to my roommate." He rambles off.

"Yeah," Kate stops him, wanting to get a word in before he goes off again, "we think that fight between Eric Lowery and Steven Kapowski that night at Edgewyck is what's behind all this."

Castle's face twists into confusion once again. "You know about that?" Kate tries to answer quickly, but he rushes on ahead of her. "Beckett, what the hell is going on? Are you saying that the walking cigarette butt known as Steven Kapowski is the one that tried to kill me _and_ my daughter?" He demands.

"We have him in custody, Castle, okay? We just need some more details to make sure the case sticks. There's something off about this whole thing and the only person that has the answers is you." She says, and she can feel in the back of her spine that this is somehow devolving into an argument.

"Well, I don't have any answers for you, okay? I don't know what's going on. I haven't spoken to Steven Kapowski in over twenty-five years." He says in a stern voice and turns away from her, starting to head back slowly to the office of the impound lot.

But right now, she needs answers and he's already aggravated with her, she probably can't make the situation worse by poking. "Castle, I need some answers here." She demands.

Castle stops and turns, straightening the bill of his hat and clenching his jaw. "About what, Beckett?"

"About why you didn't call me!" She shouts. "I hadn't heard from you all day, you didn't even text me and then I get a call in the middle of the night from a town I've barely heard of to hear that you've been found in the middle of the woods half dead? I have to spend a week digging through your past trying to piece together what happened to you and what brought you up here in the first place. And now I finally made an arrest, you're finally awake to give me some answers but now I have more questions than ever."

"I don't know why I didn't call you, okay? I'm sorry."

"Then who the hell is Lily?" The question springs out of her mouth before she can stop it.

He turns to her with a straight, furrowing brow, and she can tell immediately that he knows who she's talking about. "What?"

"When you first woke up, you were asking for my grandmother, whom I've _never_ told you about, and who's been dead for over seven years. And you were asking for her like your life depended on it, Castle. Now, who is she?" She asks frustratingly, taking a step toward him.

But he turns away from her and hides his eyes under his hat, muttering in a small voice. "It's not important."

"The hell it's not, Castle." She pushes, a small voice of regret speaking to her in the back of her mind. "You were asking for her like your life depended on it. I've been at this for over a week and now I'm more confused than ever. I think I've earned a straight answer on something-"

"She was our daughter!" He yells, turning to her with what looks like heartbreak stinging his eyes.

But with his confession, she feels her angry expression melt from her face and her body go limp and numb. She can't even think at the sound of what he just told her.

After a long moment, he blinks and continues painfully. "You named her after your grandmother because you said that your mother always hated the sound of her own first name."

Her heart sends another cold shiver through her. "How did you..."

He lets out another loud breath and looks over to her with a hollow look in his once pain-filled eyes. "Now you know why I didn't tell you."

* * *

The drive back to the hotel is being made in complete silence.

He's just starring out of the passenger side window of his silver Lexus, taking in the sights of Brattleboro in unmotivated interest. With the quiet and the thick tension between them, she has a chance to think. But about what?

About the fact that he'd created some sort of dream where they had a daughter together? And asking about her ring, when she showed him the wrong ring? The way he seemed to be staring down at her ring finger with such despair and longing as he pinched it with his thumb and forefinger, as if something were supposed to be there for him to feel. But most of all... the name. She knew she's never mentioned the name Lily to him, but she can remember very clearly never once telling him about how her mother hated the name Johanna. The only two people who know that are herself and her father. Her mother never had the heart to tell Grandma Lily that she hated the name they picked for her.

But even still, all of it is overshadowed by the fact that he woke up to a reality that he wasn't familiar with. He'd dreamt that they had a family... a daughter, a little girl that was theirs. Now that she thinks of it, she realizes that she's never really given the idea any thought. The idea that one day, she'd allow herself to be in a position to be able to start a family, to have kids. He's dreamt it, there's a picture in his mind of what it would be like.

"What was she like?" She asks out of nowhere as they pull to a stop at a traffic light.

She casts a glance out of the side of her eye and can tell he knows what she's asking about. He lifts his one free hand off his leg, not even turning his head to look over at her. "No, Beckett, I..." He starts in a low, emotionally drained voice, "I just want to forget about it, okay?"

She nods and pulls away from the stop, heading through town back to the hotel. "I understand." Which, in a way, she does. There is a part of her that just wants this whole ordeal to end so she can go back to her normal routine. "It's just... I've never told you about my grandma, so... it's weird is all."

"Look, if I could explain it, I would." He defends himself, getting aggravated again by the sound of his voice. "I don't know why I even _had_ the stupid dream. And right now, all I want to do is forget about it and... go back to normal." He mutters and turns back out the window as she pulls into the parking lot of the hotel.

She nods to herself again and slips into the parking space they pulled out of a little over an hour ago. "I was just curious, Castle." She says, trying to swallow her hurt she feels pulling at her heart.

"Look, I'm..." he trails off and climbs out with her, "I'm sorry I dragged you into... whatever this all is. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to forget about the fact that I had a dream like the one I did when you're already with Josh."

She watches him as he slowly limps toward the stairs to head up to his family's hotel room while she stays planted at the door to driver's side of the Lexus. "Josh and I broke up."

He stops in his tracks right as he passes the car, turning to give her another confused look. "What? When?"

She shrugs and starts to fiddle with the car keeps in her fingers. "About a week ago." She can see him start to put together the pieces in his head, of the timeline while he's been under. She can remember his journals, his words and his worries, so she stops him. "Yes, it was because of you and... no, it's not your fault, so you don't have to blame yourself."

"Kate, what-"

"He just-" They start over each other. After a moment, Castle motions for her to continue. "I was up here taking care of Alexis, like I promised and I went to see you one night and found Josh there waiting for me. I guess he'd planned to surprise me and make my time up here a getaway for us, but... I told him no and that I wasn't here to vacation." She looks back up to his wide, fearful eyes. "I was here for you, and... long story short, we decided that we were putting too much effort into something that wasn't making either of us happy, so... we broke up."

He sighs and gives her a small, reassuring nod while looking down to his feet again. "Well, you deserve to be happy."

She feels a smile tease the edges of her lips, thinking back to that moment when she typed out those words, as emotionally vulnerable as she was. She looks back up to him, seeing his eyes have finally found their way back up to hers and sees they're lighter, less burdened somehow, softer. "So... we're normal, right? I mean, I know a lot's going on with the case and there are still some pieces missing, but... I just want to make sure that we're..." She lets the sentence fall, unable to find the right words.

"Partners?"

She nods slowly, "Yeah... partners." She answers him, almost in a disappointed voice. _Just partners._

His smile seems to soften as she takes the few steps forward it takes to reach the stairs, which she lets him go ahead of her to slowly hobble his way up. After some time and some patience, she reaches her door and pulls out her room key, smiling to him over her shoulder as he makes for the door to the room next to her. Seeing the same smile she's used to, the soft smirk of her partner shining back at her, she concedes and turns to head into her room.

"She was stubborn." He says from his own door.

She stops and turns back to him, seeing he's looking at her in a different, far away yet loving look. Silently, she asks him with a furrow in her brow, but her heart is already telling her who he's talking about.

"And she was way too smart for her age, but she was just as compassionate as her mother." His eyes drift off as he gazes out to the skyline. "She had her mother's eyes too." After a moment, which she feels her heart being pulled and swelled, he looks back to her with a soft grin. "And her attitude."

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Now that he's awake, I'm working in a lot more Caskett. Big finale is coming up soon, can't tell you when... BUT SOON!  
_


	19. Chapter 19

Going from her side to laying on her stomach and re-fluffing her pillows, she tries once again to fall asleep, hoping it's as easy as closing her eyes. After just three slow breaths, she groans inwardly and pushes herself up, spinning around to her opposite side and balling up part of the covers in her arms, once again, willing herself to finally fall asleep. After another few breaths, her eyes pop open with not a lick of sleepiness or exhaustion holding them back.

Rolling her wide awake eyes to herself, she groans again, this time audibly and flips herself over to lay flat on her back, staring aimlessly at her ceiling.

She knows what's keeping her awake. But doesn't want to brace herself for what thinking of it will do to her physically. It will make her heart beat where it's not supposed to, her throat tighter than it's supposed to be, her blood thicker than it's supposed to be, her breath more painful to take in than it's supposed to be. But after realizing this, her head turns against her pillow and looks across the expanse of the mattress. Just over a week ago, she would look across the bed and see someone else.

Someone she didn't love.

She rolls her eyes to herself when that thought skirts its way through her mind and looks back up at the ceiling. If she didn't love him, why was she with him in the first place? He was cute enough, driven and dedicated to his work enough, he was safe enough. _Safe enough,_ she grits her teeth at the bit of honesty that snuck in. That's all it was, wasn't it? As she looks back over to the empty side of the bed, she remembers what it was like between them. There was never once a time she can remember when, the few times he'd actually spend the night, where she'd pull at his arm and curl herself underneath it to nuzzle herself into his side.

Not once.

But then there's Castle. And when she thinks about him, her body is hit with the feeling she was afraid of; a clutching heart, squeezing breath, and thickening blood. It wasn't his idea to cuddle up in each other's arms in that freezer, it was her's. She remembers it clearly. He was pacing the floor up and down in the freezer with shaky breath and she decided to preserve her energy by sitting down. After a while of complete silence, he sat down next to her, and right as he was settled next to her, she tugged at his arm, scooted herself over and burrowed herself into his side.

But at the end of the day, even now, he's her partner. Push comes to shove, her friend. And that's not only safe to her, it's important to her. Working this case alone, going rogue, without her partner for the first time in years, she's gotten used to how easy he makes her job. But if they go off that cliff, if she goes against her instinct and chase after this feeling, that fundamental relationship would have no choice but to change. And what if they end up breaking each other's hearts?

What then? Would she have to go back to how her life was before she met him at all? There are times when she can't even remember what it was like without him around. And once she says that to herself, she feels everything else drift away. If she can't remember what her life was like before him, what does that say?

But suddenly, there's a light, rapid knock on her door.

Her head jumps off the pillow, then her eyes dart over to the digital clock and sees that it's only fifteen past one. Instinctively, her muscles tense as she pushes herself slowly out of bed, peeling the covers off her legs and grabbing her gun sitting on the nightstand, her thumb against the slide release and her finger pressing against the outside of the trigger well. She moves stealthily toward the door and peers through the peephole. When she sees her partner looking toward the ground, then quickly up and down the walkway of the upper floor of the hotel, she drained her muscles of tension and opens the door.

He visibly jumps at the sound, looking widely up at her. "I had a dream and I think I remember something." He rushes, but brings himself to a complete stop. His eyes first find her legs, and it isn't until he sees them cloud with what is clearly lust that she realizes that she's wearing a pair of grey cotton boy shorts and a baggy purple long sleeved t-shirt. But after a moment of feeling her skin crawl with excitement, she sees the moment when he sees her holding her gun.

It's then that he looks back up to her.

"I-I'm sorry, I-I just... uh... you..." He stutters.

And after a moment of lusting herself, taking in his sleepwear of a tight-fitting tank top and low hanging flannel pants with his arm still in the dark blue sling, though it's the first time she's seen his bandage going around his arm and his shoulder from the gunshot wound. She feels a smile flash itself across her features and looks down under her bangs of her ponytail, flipping it back over and pushing open the door. "Come on in, Castle."

She can hear him deflate as he rushes past her and inside her room. She flips on the light as she closes the door behind him. "I'm sorry if I woke you up but," he says and turns around, doing a double take when he sees her under the light, "you don't exactly look like you just woke up."

She chuckles under her breath and moves back to her bed, "Yeah, me and sleep don't really seem to be agreeing tonight." She jokes and sets her gun back down next to her phone.

"Is something wrong?" He asks, his tone sweet and honest, so tender she can feel herself almost swoon at his words.

But she can't tell him what it is that's bothering her, because... well, it's him. "No," she lies, lifting a hand to him and puts the other on the back of her waist, "just can't sleep, that's all." Seeing him nod, she quickly changes the subject, "So, you said you remembered something?"

He looks back up to her, raising his brow before she catches the moment where he clicks in his mind his purpose for being here at all. "Yeah, I uh... I had a dream I was going down the road in my Ferrari when someone rammed me from behind." Kate moves over to the whiteboard and uncaps a pen. "I looked back and it was a truck, it was black."

Quickly, she rips the picture of Kapowski's truck from the whiteboard and turns around, giving it to him. "Did it look like this?"

After only a second of study, Castle taps the photo with his finger, "That's it."

"It was Kapowski, I knew it." She mumbles and puts the picture back up. "Can you remember what happened after he rammed you?"

He lets out a short breath as she readies her pen to jot down his words. "I hit the gas and outran him. Once I was in sixth gear, I got on my phone to call you. But as I was trying, I saw a deer in the road and swerved to miss it and I lost control."

"So Kyle was right." She mutters to herself, jotting down the word 'dear' underneath the picture of the crashed Ferrari. "It was an animal that made you lose control in the first place. That's the only reason Kapowski was able to catch up to you. "

"The uh..." He continues, "the crash happened fast. It was like... I heard the crunch of metal and didn't realize what happened until I forced the door open. I didn't feel any pain, everything was still spinning. But after a started to get dizzy, I looked up and raised my hand to wave down the car I saw passing for help."

"But it was Kapowski." She finishes and recaps her pen forcefully.

"All I remember seeing was the muzzle flash. I took off running into the woods, I figured it would be harder for him to follow me."

"But he did." Kate says it for him.

I took off into the woods as fast as I could, but... my legs wouldn't work right. Once I heard the car door close, I turned and tried to go faster. I-I was-" She stops and looks back up at him, seeing his jaw clenched and his eyes foggy with fear. She steps up to him, standing just a foot away from him and feels her hand want to reach out in support, but he's continuing on without her before she can give in. "I was scared and my body was just starting to hurt all over. He fired a couple of shots but missed. I tried to duck and dodge him through the trees, but I heard him fire another shot, then... it just felt like a bee sting."

Her eyes dart down to the bandage covering his shoulder. Then she starts to take in all of the other smaller injuries staining his softly defined muscular body. All the small cuts and scraps that are still healing. But even still, his skin looks so warm, almost inviting. And as she finds the crock of his neck, she can even feel herself drifting into it, nuzzling herself into it just to inhale his scent and wait for him to put his arms around her and pull her in closer to him. "What-" She shakes the thought away violently, "what else can you remember after that?"

"I fell to the ground and could hear his footsteps through the leaves. I pulled myself up, and I uh... I can remember I was wheezing for air, I was really hurting to breathe, but... I tried my best to power through it. I heard him fire another shot, but he must have missed because I don't remember hearing him follow me after that, but I kept running. When I couldn't take it anymore, I collapsed against a tree. I leaned my head back and just... felt my eyes close." His voice is shaking, she can see it in his eyes that he's reliving the moment in his mind.

And she can see it all happening in her's. She wants to be able to put herself there with him, as she always is, as she's supposed to be. But all she can see is him limping through the darkened forest, scared for his life. And she can picture it as he tells his story; her partner, her friend, the one man whose gotten her to care about him more than anyone else in her life, leaning against a tree in the middle of the woods and accepting his death. While she's spent the last eleven days unwilling to accept it at all.

It isn't until she feels the warmth and the tremble of his skin that she realizes she's put her hand on his arm, gently folding her arms over his triceps. But once she feels herself touching his arm, the tremble she touched stops and he seems to relax and calm himself at the touch. With her thumb starting to pet slow motions against his bicep, she feels his hand find her side, and once his fingers softly dig into the thin cotton of her shirt, her breath hitches loudly in her throat.

But with that, he looks up over her shoulder and points to her whiteboard. "Is this everything you have?"

Without an answer, and unable to give one with her breath stolen from her, he steps around her and goes up to the whiteboard. She drains herself of as much as can and turns around to stand next to him. "Yeah," She answers, crossing her arms. "I took me a while because I had to do it all without my partner, but... yeah, this is everything I've gathered so far. And not all of it is adding up."

His finger shoots up and lands against the name 'Earl', scrawled out next to the picture of the crash site. "Who's this?"

"That's the guy that found you. When the cops first told me that you had been brought in with a gunshot wound, he was my prime suspect and I didn't trust the statement that they took. So I managed to track him down and he told me he was driving along the road that night and saw the crash. He knew the road was mostly deserted at that time of night except for himself and once he saw blood, he followed the blood trail you left until he found you."

"And you believed that?" Castle asks.

"He said he was a former marine and his pickup had veteran plates. I didn't see any reason for him to lie, so... if not for him, you probably would have died on those woods." She says thankfully and looks over to him with the corners of her mouth tucked in.

His soft gaze lowers after a second and he nods. "Well, I owe him a lot then."

"After that, I went to inspect the Ferrari and noticed these." She says and pulls off the picture of the smashed rear end and hands it to him. "I noticed the dents in the rear end were too symmetrical to have come from the crash. I've seen these in cars that the police have to run off the road. These dents are from the grill across the front end." She says, leaning in closer to him to point out the dents. "I first suspected it was a cop and that's why they were shutting me out of the investigation, but... when Kapowski used that truck to try and kill Alexis, that theory went out the window."

He lets out a long breath and looks back up to the whiteboard, continuing to study it. "OB?" He asks, pointing to a note on the whiteboard near the bottom left-hand corner. "You know about that?"

"Damian Westlake told me about the foster kids Edgewyck would take in. He said that there were a lot of kids who tried to run away, and when I told him that Lowery's remains had been found, he said that he might've gotten lost while trying to get out of town."

"You..." He starts, but lets the words fall as he turns back to her. She looks over with a softly raised brow, "you went to see Damian?"

She nods sternly and looks back at the whiteboard. "Yeah, he was the one who gave me the idea of looking in your yearbooks for your enemies. Once the attempt was made on Alexis, Ryan and Esposito pulled a few strings and got themselves put on the investigation and we cross-referenced the school's files with your yearbooks and that's what gave us Kapowski."

"Beckett, I..." He struggles again.

She's moving on with her train of thought without him though. "He has a degree from a trade school for mechanics, so he has the skills necessary to do the custom work I noticed on both his truck and on the gun he used. And he has a history of violence and an arrest record, so he fits into the profile of a violent killer, but I still don't understand why he went after Alexis. I mean, she wasn't a threat."

"Well, you brought her with you to the school right?"

"Yeah, but we were undercover. We pretended to be there for her little brother, Reese."

She sees his head jump up and his eyes widen with a knitted brow, "How do you know that name?"

She looks over to him with a slightly confused expression, "It was just the name Alexis made up. All she said when I asked her was she liked the name, that's all."

His eyes slowly move away from her and down to the floor as he nods. "B-but..." he continues, trying to get them back on track, "but if Kapowski went after Alexis because she went to the school, that implies that he still has some connection to the school somehow."

"But... but if he was expelled, how would he still have any connection to the school? And why? And why would he kill Eric Lowery after he was already expelled? I mean, why wouldn't he go after you instead? You're the one who turned him in. And what about this guy would make you not want to come to me about it?"

"Beckett," he tries again.

"I mean, Kapowski's angry, but he folded like a cheap Chinese fan. And why wouldn't he just confess if we were already searching his home and he knew we were going to find the truck _with_ the shell casings still inside with all the truck's registry information missing? He already confessed to beating up Lowery, why would he deny you confronting him? I should probably take another run at him in the-"

"Kate." He commands in a stern voice, taking soft hold of her arm and turning her to face him. She seizes up at the sight of his emotionally honest eyes. "I-I..." He struggles again, nodding toward the whiteboard and looks it over again before turning back to her, "I don't know what say."

She feels herself flash him a smile and turns to face him fully, uncrossing her arms while not shaking off the hand he's holding her with. "What do you mean, Castle?"

"Well, just... this. All this. I didn't know you'd ever do any of this for me, Kate."

She smiles small and nods in a fraction of a motion, breaking away from his too honest look. "Don't worry about it, Castle. We're partners."

His smile quickly turns heavy and he gives her an assuring nod, letting his hand fall. She feels a coldness sink through her at the loss of his contact. "Thank you, Beckett, it... I don't know how I could ever thank you for any of this." He tells her while still looking at the board.

"Well," She starts, feeling herself tighten at what she's about to say, "you could give me a bit more warning before you kiss me again." She shrugs.

His eyes quickly and frighteningly dart over to her, seeming completely uncomfortable at the territory she just trod them into.

"I mean, that was the second time you've done that. I'd like a little more time to prepare for it." She says, trying her best to keep her tone light and not at all serious. "Especially if this whole running off to Vermont without telling your partner thing is going to be your new hobby." She finishes with her tone sinking, her head sinking with it.

"What do you-"

"I had to get a call in the middle of the night to hear that my own partner was brought into the hospital, Rick." She says, spinning around quickly to look him in the eye. "I put on a brave face for Alexis because it's what she needed me to do, but I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again. And I... I broke up with Josh because I told him that I wasn't willing to accept anything other than you coming back. And it wasn't until then that I realized that I was doing something for my partner that I probably wouldn't do for him, so... you don't have to blame yourself for what happened with me and Josh."

His eyes seem to drift from being emotionally open and vulnerable to confused around the edges. "You said that before, what..."

"I know that you're going to blame yourself because you're the reason Josh and I broke up, but... it was my decision, not yours, Josh understood that. So none of it's on you. I mean... we're partners, after all."

He smiles heavily again and gives her a nod. "Well, I uh..." he begins and nods toward the door. "I should probably let you try and get some sleep. I'm spending the day with Alexis tomorrow before we go back home. I want to get her back into a normal routine as soon as I can."

Knowing that he's taking a retreat, probably just the same as she would after what she just said, she crosses her arms around herself and agrees. "That'll be good. We could all get some good out of going back to our normal routines after all this." She says on a casual smile between then as she shuffles her way through her room, following him as he heads for the door.

"Right now, normal sounds like heaven to me." He moans and pulls open the door. "G'night, Beckett."

"Night, Castle."


	20. Chapter 20

It's dark by the time they pass through one of the last state lines they need to cross in order to get back home. She just got out of a thick wave of traffic trying to get out of the Hartford city limits, but it's just passing eight o'clock and they still have ways to go before she drops herself off. Castle had spent most of the day with Alexis, unwinding with just the two of them after this stressful ordeal. Kate notices a significant ease in the teen's smile and a certain brightness in her eyes when they returned to the hotel to pack.

She likes to think that she's developed a friendship with her, at the very least. Because, like she said, she didn't try to be her mother, but her friend through all of this. Taking care of her, watching out for her, being her protector, it's been a responsibility that's felt more rewarding than she would have ever anticipated it being. Something about it, it's given her a purpose she's only ever felt a peripheral part of; protecting the city and catching killers so other fathers and mothers can do it. She likes to think, in the back of her mind, that she's been accepted into this family, as Martha says she has.

And now, it's just her and Kate. Martha is in the passenger seat next to her as Kate drives a majority of the way. She was in the back with Alexis while the elder started off on the journey home, but Kate took over during a pit stop in Springfield. For the rest of the way, it's Kate in the driver's seat with Martha next to her, while Alexis sleeps off the day with her father, leaning gingerly against his right shoulder. Castle's painkillers have him tired and with his body still in the process of healing, he doesn't have much energy, so he's also passed out in the backseat with his daughter.

Martha, however, is wide awake. She's used to being a night owl from her years on Broadway. "Any progress on the case, dear?" The elder redhead asks in a soft, undisturbing tone.

Kate flashes her a smile before looking back up to the carpool lane. "They're charging him with a few felony weapons charges, along with some other things they managed to tack on. On the advice of counsel, it seems, he admitted to modifying the gun and doing the custom work seen on the truck for a payment under the table but claims he didn't know from who. It still sounds fishy to me, but hopefully, he goes away for a long time."

Martha lets out a long breath and rolls her head back against the rest of her seat. "That's a relief. Hopefully, Richard won't go out of his mind, now that it's been put to rest and things can all go back to normal."

Her wording sends a heavy tug at the bottom of Kate's heart. She needs to just admit it to herself, she wants something more. "Yeah... normal." She practically laments.

And like a hawk, Martha spots her weakness and swoops in. "Something wrong, dear?" She asks gently, turning her disengaging, all too motherly gaze toward the driver, whose trying with very little effort to put up her usual defenses.

Kate sends another soft smile Martha's way and turns back to the road in front of her. "I don't want to bother you, Martha." She tries.

But she can tell it fails when the mother's gaze doesn't waver from a soft, lidded, smile. "You're gonna have to try pretty hard to bother me, kiddo. Richard may be your partner, but he's my son, after all."

Kate chuckles under her breath at the woman's comedy, her guard being forced down without her even noticing it by the quip. She casts another quick glance to gauge her expression for a moment and sees only an open look that hopes only for honesty. "I-I just..." She struggles to begin, not used to being honest about her feelings, not even with herself. "I'm just beginning to think that maybe... maybe _normal_ isn't exactly what I want anymore."

"Ah," Martha breathes, slowly giving Kate a nod as she turns to look out the windshield. "Are we speaking of the good doctor?"

Feeling her heart quiver painfully in her chest as she checks the rearview, where she can see the headlights behind her cast shadows against Castle's head, limped back against the backseat. "No," she painfully admits. "I broke up with Josh because he finally got me to admit I didn't love him. And that wasn't fair to either of us, so..."

"Well," Martha starts in a light, uplifting tone, "take it from a woman who's made a mistake a time or two, you can't help who it is you fall in love with, Katherine." She tells her with but a wave of her hand, as if yawning about her own relationship troubles from the past.

"Well," She parrots on a chuckle, "you can ask your son, I like to be in control so... you can imagine how that makes me feel." Kate admits, gripping the steering wheel in anger at no one other than herself. There's a moment where they both pause, Kate waiting for Martha to continue poking and prodding her as Castle would... she hopes. "I'm just beginning to think that maybe what I thought was normal isn't where I want to be when I look back at my life."

"Which, I might add, you might not get the chance to, Katherine." Martha interjects. "I mean, running around, dealing with violent psychopaths day in, day out, it's all I can do to keep from pulling my hair out worrying about Richard, and he's not even the cop. I can't imagine what your father must go through."

Kate smiles to herself. She knows good and well that her father worries about her and if it were up to him, she'd be doing pretty much anything else. But a part of her likes to think that his worry keeps him close to her, in a weird way. "Having Castle around helps." She says as the thought floats with ease into her mind.

"He has always said he feels perfectly safe when he's around you." Martha thinks out loud, almost complimenting her with her tone. "And the one time he goes off on his own, this happens." She rolls her eyes with a wave of her hand toward the back seat. "If that's not a sign, I don't know what is." She shakes her head and looks out the window.

"Having him as my partner has taught me a lot more than I thought it would. Like... not everything has to be as serious as I make it out to be. That being the strongest doesn't always mean having to do it alone. That there can be some good in the darkness and if there isn't any... then _be_ the good in the darkness." She feels her heart drift, feeling light inside of her chest as she lets her thoughts wander around him.

"Not that I don't love hearing you fawn over the wisdom my son has offered you, Katherine, but I think you've taught him a _lot_ more than he's taught you. I swear, every time he gets a call from you, it's like watching him go after Christmas presents, he gets so excited."

"Still haven't taught him to keep his mitts out of my desk, but okay, I'll go with it." She says with a smirk, earning a soft laugh from Martha.

"No, but in all seriousness, dear, Richard has always been able to get by in life relatively easy. He only received a few rejection letters from his writing before he got a publisher. But, working with you has taught him that there's a cost to life. That there are certain things he can't get out of with his wallet or his connections. I had hoped he'd learned that lesson after Meredith, but old habits seem not to die with my son."

Kate bites the inside of her lip to keep herself quiet, sensing Martha on a roll and not wanting the sound of another voice in the car to wake the man directly behind her up.

"Richard has, over the years, gotten into a bad habit of buying affection ever since he could afford it. And, luckily for him, when a man as handsome as Richard offers you a tennis bracelet or gold earrings, most women find it hard to stay mad at him. I don't have to tell you that his past history proves it's caught up with him more times than he'd care to admit but... working with you Katherine, seems to have shown him that life has a real cost. I think, or at least I'd like to, that he now sees that if he wants magic, he's going to have to learn the tricks himself."

Feeling a chuckle rise in her throat, Kate chances another glance in Martha's direction, seeing her leaned against the center console. "What do you mean?"

"Do you recall Richard getting back together with Gina?" After a silent nod, Martha nods back and continues, "well, I had asked him how things were and he replied that they were... normal. I asked him what the problem was, and with a sunken face, he looked over to me and said... he didn't _want_ normal, that he wanted magic. Well, I am sorry, Richard," she says pointedly, "but if you want magic, you're going to have to learn the tricks."

Kate nods to herself, recalling in almost perfect detail of how she overheard him that day in the precinct, back when things were normal, when he said that things were over with them. That was back when it was normal, and even easy, for her to pretend the relief she felt ungrip from her spinal column when she heard him never existed and was just something she ate. It's gotten hard to pretend it doesn't exist and even harder for her not to admit it means something deeper.

Because she knows it did. Knows _now,_ anyway.

"I think if anyone can find magic in normalcy, it's Castle." She adds, her tone suggesting an end to the conversation as they pass into their home state.

After some more time spent in traffic, with her partner and his daughter still passed out in the back seat, she pulls to a stop outside of her apartment building. She lugs her suitcase out of the trunk and sets it down with a thud onto the sidewalk, stopping to meet Martha at the passenger side. The mother opens her arms and wraps them lovingly around her shoulders. And Kate surprises even herself by returning the affection more honestly than she realized she had the heart for right now.

"We can't thank you enough for all you've done for this family, Katherine." Martha says into her ear.

Kate smiles and rubs Martha's back before pulling back. "It was my pleasure, Martha. I even had a little fun."

Rubbing her arms tenderly, Martha smiles with an arched brow and floats around to the driver's seat. Kate waits on the sidewalk for them to pull away, and it isn't until the silver Lexus drifts into traffic that she sees her partner's head lift up from the headrest.

* * *

It's the next morning when Kate is standing in the hallway to the loft.

With enough confidence, she uses the key he had left her and lets herself in. And just as the times she's been in here when she was here alone, the loft shows no signs of life save for the lights being on already. There's a pile of dishes next to the sink and a large bouquet of flowers sitting on the island that wasn't there before. Their bags are still stacked near the door, even Alexis', who clearly left hers at the door when she got home, went to bed, and got what she needed this morning before leaving for school.

As quietly as she can, she closes the door behind her and slowly slinks through the loft, eyeing up the stairs for signs of movement. She turns again toward the open door to his office when she doesn't find anything upstairs and starts through the living room into his office. She stops at the entryway, putting a hand on the door jam and leaning in. The door to his bedroom is cracked open and she can hear a muffled voice, sounding like Martha. Hesitantly, she looks towards his desk and takes the few steps, sneaking through his office and up to his desk. He's clearly been here by the signs of it.

There are books laid out around his laptop and his smartboard is turned on with a picture of her murder board she packed up the night before in a folder and stuffed it into her suitcase. She looks down to the first book lying behind his open laptop and reads the cover, _The Interpretation of Dreams,_ then pulls the next book toward her, an all blue cover reading _Dream Analysis._ The next book she finds, lying on the edge of his desk is titled _The Dream and the Underworld._

"Richard," Martha's soothing voice carries through the cracked door.

"You don't understand, mother!" She hears him practically shout from the other side of his bedroom.

Her body springing at the sound of his angry, frustrated voice, she silently leaps toward the wall. "Richard, I know this has been bothering you, but the doctor said it was normal." She reassures him. "The dream you had was your mind playing out-"

"It _wasn't_ a dream, mother!" He says while she can hear his footsteps creaking underneath the floor boards of his bedroom. "If it was a dream, then why can I still remember _exactly_ how it felt to hold our daughter. Why is it that I can remember in _vivid_ detail- the way she'd smile as she tucked our sons into their bunk beds, how she'd smile like she was the happiest woman in the world, then look back at me to tell me that it was because of the family we had together?"

"Richard, if you feel this strongly about it, then why don't you just go talk to her?" Kate feels her breath hitch, as if he's rushing out the door right now to find her standing there.

"Because every time I look at her, I keep expecting to see a look in her eyes that isn't there." He sighs. She can feel the pause in the room, but her body is overtaken by her pounding heart, thundering against her ribcage. "I'll talk to her about all this... one day, just... not now." He groans and seems to turn around in his bedroom. "Right now, I have to focus on the case. Beckett's right, something doesn't add up."

The instant she hears the sound of the knob rattling, Kate leaps from the wall near the bureau to his desk, trying her best to look nonchalant about appearing from nowhere. Coping with a cold sweat, she turns with a smile as the door opens and Martha comes walking out. "Katherine," She greets her happily.

"Beckett," Castle says over his mother's shoulder, "hey."

"I hope it's alright I let myself in, I..." She trails off, tapping his house key against her finger, "I just wanted to return a few things."

"No, it's alright. I think you've earned the right to a few break-ins here and there." He jokes with a usual smirk as he slowly makes his way around to his desk, his mother ushering herself out of the room with speed.

Kate smiles, "In my defense, Castle, I did have a key." She replies, showing him the key he'd left her. He breathes a laugh and smiles, taking it from her hand when she offers it to him from across the desk. "And," She continues, digging into the pocket of her leather jacket, "the credit card. I only used it a few times, food and such for your mother and Alexis."

Castle takes the card with a heavy smirk and spins it in his fingers. "So, I'm not going to see any crazy charges on the bill?" He challenges her with a waggling brow.

"Does that mean I have to return the yacht?" She fires back.

"Let me name it 'The Castle' and give me carte blanche, I'm sure we can let it slide." Kate feels a large, toothy smile erupts across her face as her stomach tightens in hysterics. She can feel him smiling at her from across the desk. "But, no, really, I... I don't think I can ever repay you for all you've done."

She gives him a small, anxious nod as a blush flares up her cheeks. "Don't worry about it, Rick. We're partners." He smiles warmly in return and gently sets the card down to his desk, fiddling with the book sitting next to it as a silence envelopes them both. "I'll be back in the precinct in a few days." That catches her his eyes again. "Think you'll be up for a little desk duty?"

"Actually, I-" he stops himself from turning too quickly and motions with his free arm toward the smart board, "I was going to keep looking into things. Something about this was important. Eric was a good guy, his killer deserves to get caught."

"You don't think Kapowski did it?"

Castle shakes his head as he leans back against his desk, glaring at his smart board. "I don't think he killed Eric. I was thinking of looking into the foster system Edgewyck had in place."

"Ryan asked about it." She interjects, pacing around to the over side of his desk to come stand at his right side with her arms crossed. "Dean Bartley said they had to discontinue it shortly after he was appointed. He decided it was causing more trouble than it was worth. A lot of the boys that came from the foster system were runaways that never came back."

"Yeah, well, Eric was different. He had dreams." He stares seriously straight forward, clenching his jaw.

Kate nods and looks down to his desk, putting a finger on top of one of the books he has laid out. "Speaking of," she begins, catching his attention, "you doing a little side research?"

His eyes go from the book to his bureau, to the picture hanging above it, then down to his restrained arm, "I was thinking of trying to get some of my memory back through dreaming, like I did the other night, that's all." He defends himself, sounding like he's even outright lying to her.

Kate nods again, wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. "It might help, but..." She trails off, shuffling her feet closer to him, "Rick, if there's something bothering you, you can tell me." After waiting for too long for his response, he simply sends her an arched brow as he turns toward her. "I mean, it was you not talking to me that got us into this mess to begin with."

"I'm sorry I didn't call you about it, Kate." The use of her first name in his soft tone makes her heart skip a beat, just as it does when she does it to him. "It's probably because," he shrugs, "this was about my past and my friends, so... next time, you're the first person I call. I promise."

Just a little reassurance, some indication that it's not all in his head, that's really all she needs. "Really? Because..." She trails off again, feeling her body seize with the demand she does not continue, "I did overhear you a little bit when you were talking with your mother."

Castle eyes her from the side before dismissing her with a shallow breath through his nostrils.

She breathes a humorless chuckle and shakes her head. "Don't tell me I need to go snooping in your journals again to get it out of you, Castle."

His shoulders seem to stiffen for a moment before they deflate as he shakes his head slightly. "I had a feeling you'd find those when I saw my laptop in your hotel room."

"I'm sorry if I violated your trust, but-"

"No," he stops her with a lift of his one good hand, "you didn't, not _really_ anyway. You saved my daughter's life, so I think I can let it go." He says, seeming honestly thankful as he pushes himself off the edge of his desk. "I think I just need some time to get my head back on straight, okay?" He tells her softly, turning to face her with an arched brow.

"Okay, well," She nods, wanting to reach out to pet his arm as she did the other night, but stops herself, "just call me, alright? Even if it's just to talk." She tells him as he smiles and turns away to turn his smartboard off. And while he's turned away, she gives in and moves her hand into his bureau.

"You're the first person I call if I plan to go anywhere." He says and clicks the power button to his smartboard, turning back to her with a heavy grin. "Promise."

"Feel better, okay, Rick?"

His smile softens and he gives her a reassuring nod. "Thanks."

Without another word, she slips out of the loft, closing the door behind her and letting out all the air in her lungs. With baited breath, she slips the envelope from her sleeve and clutches it tightly in her fingers, the word ' _Kate'_ staring back at her.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry there was no update yesterday. Feeling tired and hungry, didn't want to write and have it be halfassed. Next chapter is one I've been looking forward to writing, having it in my head for this long is starting to give me headaches. :)_


	21. Chapter 21

Kate's heart is racing with a noxious mixture of anticipation and guilt as she scurries through her door to her apartment like a feral cat.

Her free hand bolts and rebolts the lock to make sure it's locked before pushing a rebellious strand of hair out of her face and walking with fearful speed into her living room, sitting down in the center cushion, and placing the sealed letter down just a reach away on the coffee table. Every nerve ending and synapse in the grinding gears of her mind are telling her that this is wrong, to return the letter without a word to pretend like she never stole it, so they can both pretend like they don't have these feelings for one another.

But she doesn't know how he feels. She tried to get it out of him, gave him the opportunity and opened the door for him, but he closed it on her. The paranoia of making a complete fool of herself and letting the already cracked dike break on her feelings on all this is just too strong. She needs to know that there's something there. She can feel a nagging voice in her already crowded and cluttered mind remind her that there is clearly something there. After all, if he feels that strongly about that dream, there has to be something there.

She knows that... but what is that something?

Her hand stops midway towards the envelope that sits, still taunting her with his neat, calm, articulate handwriting that spells out her name as if he wrote it out with only his voice. She doesn't even know what's in here. This is a letter he had planned to send her if he was never, ever going to see her again. The letter he had sent to her was heartfelt enough, so what could possibly be in this one?

Moving so fast so's to not let her conscience stop her, she grabs onto the envelope with one hand, tearing at the seal with the sharp nail of her thumb. Her breath is stolen by the time she tugs the folded set of papers out and lets the envelope glide back down to the wooden surface of her coffee table. She feels her heart send one last thunder through her veins as she unfolds the papers and sees paragraph after paragraph of his familiar handwriting.

 _Kate,_

 _If you're reading this, then that probably means I did something you probably told me not to. I've gotten lucky far too often to attribute it all to skill, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened, I guess. I know writers like to say 'anything for a story', but dying isn't really on my list. If that is the case, then don't let Alexis be consumed by grief or waste any of her time she could spend living her life on trying to change things she can't change. She looks up to you, Kate. She could have used someone like you in her life a long time ago._

 _I think we all could, really. I know I could have. I don't know when you're going to be reading this, or if you ever will, but in the three years I've known you, you've taught me more about strength and never giving up on what's right than I knew there was ever to learn. And I'm not ever afraid of the day when I'll stop learning from you, because every day when I come to the precinct to try and get answers, I only leave with more questions. The more I get to know you, the greater and deeper the mystery of you seems to get._

 _There are even times when I feel more envious of how strong and unwavering you can be in the face of such odds as overwhelming as the ones we've faced together. You never let it shake you. You always remain as steadfast and determined as the world needs you to be, just to show the world that there can still be strength and honor where the rest of it has given up. I can't describe to you how jealous and envious I am sometimes of that strength. Mostly because I would need that kind of strength to ever say these kinds of things to you otherwise._

 _So, all I can really hope is by the time you read this letter, I would have gotten up the courage to at least say some of it to you in person. It's hard enough for me to write this all down, knowing where it's going. Even now, I'm envious of your courage, a courage I don't seem to have, because I'm terrified of you ever reading this. But you're smarter than you give yourself credit for, so I know that you know where this is going._

 _And that's me telling you that I'm in love with you._

 _You're the most remarkable woman I've ever met in my entire life, Kate. I can't even call you the woman of my dreams because even in my wildest fantasies, I could never dream about meeting someone like you. It's gotten to the point where I'm starting to find you in everything, and with an imagination as uncontrollable as mine, you can imagine how hard that is to cope with. Because at the time I'm writing this, the last time I saw you was when you were putting your arms around another man._

 _It hurt far deeper than I anticipated, which probably prompted me to start writing this. I'm clearly of a biased opinion, but even I can see that Josh is a good man, the kind of man that I could never really be. So, if you spend the rest of your life with him, then all I ask is that you find happiness in it. Because as selfish as I am with you, I know that I love you and care about you far too much to just assume you'd be happier with me. If Josh, or anyone else, gives you the kind of happiness we both know you deserve, then I know that I won't ever forgive myself if I was the one who stood in the way of that._

 _All I ask is that you let them love you the way I do, that you let them see the person I know is on the other side of the wall you put around yourself. Because the person you show everyone intrigued me, but the person you don't is the one that made me fall in love with you. You deserve as much happiness as you can get your hands on, Kate. So whether it's with Josh, or Demming, or even that walking pile of judgemental bureaucracy you call Sorenson, the thing that would mean the most to me is if you find happiness with someone you're not afraid to be happy with._

 _You can have anyone you want, Kate. You just have that kind of grace and humility. But if the kind of relationship you have with Josh is what makes you happy, then don't let whatever happened to me stand in the way. Go change the world like I know you can. The only thing I can is that you live a life that you can look back on and call yourself the happiest woman on Earth, because you can shake it off as much as you want, but you deserve to be._

 _And, if by some miracle, I'm included somewhere in there, then I'm already the happiest man on Earth. Never let yourself forget this, Kate. You deserve to be loved the way I love you with someone you love just as much._

 _Goodbye, Katherine Beckett~_

Her twisted insides convulse in a cold shiver erupting through her. With painful tears spilling over her lashes, she lets the last page tremble in her weakened fingers before letting it fall slowly to the floor. Her heart is aching agonizingly against the pit of her knotted stomach. Her lungs finally release a breath she'd been holding, which seems to shake as she pushes it out. Her eyes finally move under her tears and see the pages of his letter scattered about in front of her. She can't muster up enough emotional support within herself to just think it.

She had no idea these kinds of feelings even existed, let alone that he'd been hiding it all underneath his clever smirk and innocent blue eyes. And he wanted her to find out after he's dead and gone?

A loud, rapid knock breaks her out of her thoughts and a cold wind blows through her veins. Snapping herself back to the world, she stands up, hardens her breath inside her lungs, angrily swipes at the evidence of her tears from her face with her palms, knowing it's not enough. But nonetheless, she makes the way down the hallway out of her living room and unlocks her door, pulling it open.

"I remember," Castle says as he rushes his way past her and inside her apartment.

As the familiar scent of his cologne pushes into her senses, seeing him in a pinstriped button-up and dark slacks with his dark blue hat hiding his still on-the-mend scalp, he quickly paces into her living room without even looking at her. But at the mere sight of him, everything she had put the effort into hiding comes back full force and another set of hot, almost angry tears fire off her lashes.

"I remember... what..." He comes to a stop as he looks to her over his shoulder. Standing in the foyer of her living room in a light grey cotton shirt and dark denim jeans, she stares at him in complete silence, but saying so much with her tears. His brow knits tightly as his expression twists into concern. "What's wrong?"

Her eyes dart over to the letter laying strewn out on her coffee table, motion to it with her weakened hand, not even trusting her words to form properly, which they don't as she tries to explain by just choking on them. "I-I..."

He follows her eyes and looks to her coffee table, quickly moving over with a slight limp showing in his left side. He gathers up the first paper he reaches for and pulls it up. After only a second, she hears him let out a long, deep sigh and lets the paper fall to his side in his one good hand, looking off into nowhere with a frustrated glare. "Where'd you find this?" His voice cuts into her.

"I-I..." She tries again, with no result that helps or even changes anything.

"There was a _reason,_ " he begins, finally looking at her with frustration lurking in his usually exited and innocent baby blue eyes, "that you weren't supposed to read this unless I was dead, Beckett." He accuses her, looking at her with an anger she isn't ready for. "And it's because of that." He says and motions to her with the letter in his hand.

His tone steals all her words from her. She watches helplessly as he takes another look down to the letter hanging from his hand and shakes his head, tossing the letter out to his side haphazardly and pacing away from it in the opposite direction. She watches it flip and flounder in the air as it tumbles down to the floor, reaching for it from her spot at the entrance to the living room as if she could catch it from here. It's already become so precious to her.

"Look," He grits as he paces away from the letter, taking off his hat and revealing the freshly-healed scar going down the side of his scalp before putting his hat back on, "if it was that hard for me to write it, I can't imagine what it's like for you to actually read it, so... if we can just forget about it, I have something really important to-"

"It's beautiful." She mutters in a soft voice.

That stops him, earning her his eyes again, softer and bigger with shock. His frustration seems to fade gently as she quickly steps forward and gathers up the letter, standing inches away from him. She straightens out the papers in her hands and finds a line to read off.

"I can't even call you the woman of my dreams... because-"

"Because even in my wildest fantasies," he interrupts her, forcing her to look away from the letter, seeing his soft and trembling with fear, "I could never dream about meeting someone like you." His voice shows a slight tremble as he recites his letter from memory. "I know what it says, Kate. I remember every word of it."

Kate gives her partner a small nod as the tears seem to solidify in her eyes, a shaking anger igniting in her veins.

"Listen, if we could just set all this aside, I need to tell you something."

"How _dare_ you!" She seethes, jabbing a finger into his chest.

A confusion conquers his expression as he takes a step back in retreat. "What? What do you-"

"How could you _possibly_ think it was a good idea for me to find out that you felt this deeply about me when you're _dead!?_ " She shouts with soiled emotion giving away her true feelings.

"I-"

"I've never had anyone feel this way about me, Castle. I've never had anyone this in love with me before. Why did you think it would be okay for you to tell me these things when I would _never_ see you again?"

"Because I didn't want you to be left with any questions like you were with your mother." He defends himself, raising his voice as he leans closer into her to make his point. She stops herself from going off again, pushing back against the need to by letting him continue. "I wanted there to be a chance to let you know how I felt in case I never worked up the courage to actually tell you myself, which..." he trails off and turns away from her, pacing his way into the dining area of her kitchen, "I still don't have, so..."

She watches him walk away, the letter still hanging limply from her hand by her side. "Rick," she tries to draw his eyes back to her, but after a moment and realizing she failed, she continues anyway, letting the words tumble from her lips without any reservation at all. "I love you too."

His hand waves out to the side as he refuses to look back at her, "Kate, if this is because of the letter, then-"

"It's not." She answers in a soft, calmly confident voice. He stops in his tracks and slowly turns back to face her with a frightened arch in his brow. "I just needed to know how you felt." He lets out a shaky breath and looks back down to the floor, hiding his eyes from her under the bill of his hat. "Why do you still not have the courage to tell me all this yourself, Rick?"

"Becuase," he starts, turning back up to her by showing tears in his voice, but not his eyes, "I don't have enough confidence in myself to think I could ever give you the kind of happiness I know you deserve." He admits to her, which she can clearly tell his painful for him.

She gives him a nod and stops herself from going to him, giving him a space she feels he needs right now, but pushes him anyway. "The dream," she says, "describe it to me."

"It was a dream, Kate." He sighs heavily and starts toward her.

"Damn it, Castle! Describe it to me!" She demands through clenched teeth, a piece of her frustration giving her strength she needs to get him to open up to her.

"It-" he struggles, gnashing his teeth together in front of her. He deflates himself as if giving up on his resolve and looks back up at her with a soft gaze. "We were married... very happily. We had a family together, with three kids. Our daughter, Lily... she was six and was the spitting image of her mother. And two twin boys... Reese and Jake, they were about to turn four." A smile sneaks onto his face as his eyes haze off into memory. "They were a couple of troublemakers that drove us both nuts and never ran out of energy."

Kate nods and feels herself drift closer into him. "Jake," She states plainly, trying to look into his quickly saddening eyes, "who gave you that name?"

After a heavy breath, he answers, "Your father, why?"

She feels something drift in her mind, "Jake is the name my parents picked if they were going to have a boy." She's met with a soft few breaths as he chuckles in front of her, a smile pushing its way onto his features again. Finally, she feels enough of herself to reach up and put her hands on his chest, just above his arm sling. "You don't think you could ever really give me that kind of happiness, don't you?" She asks him, starting to tug on his shirt. All he can manage is a small shake of his head, "Well, I have a surprise for you, Rick."

His eyes finally look back up to her, wide and glimmering as he waits for her. Gently, she reaches up and takes his jawline in her hands and presses herself against him, leaning up to melt her lips against his on her tip-toes. His lips return her loving, passionate gesture as soon as she has her lips against his, pulling on his jaw with her fingers. Her stomach coils and weaves under her exploding heart, surging herself and giving every ounce of it she can to the man she's kissing... the man she loves. His hand presses against her back, dipping into the curve of her spinal column as her fingers migrate slowly into the hair under his hat.

She lets his mouth go begrudgingly and leans back down, not letting his face go and watches as his eyes flutter open slowly. "You do make me that happy, Rick."

* * *

 _A/N: One more twist coming in the next chapter. Put your helmets on and make sure you're sitting down. It's a doozy. :)_


	22. Chapter 22

Kate sinks down onto his lap, straddling him with more force to bring him closer to her. His lips move gracefully and in complete harmony with her's, their bodies and beings in perfect sync. His one good hand softly grasps her thigh, the pads of his fingers digging into the taut fabric of her jeans. Her hands move over his jaw into his already disheveled hair, pulling and weaving her fingers through its softness while getting as much of him from his kissing as she can. When she tastes his tongue, a deep, wanting moan erupts from the pits of her tossing stomach.

She's never been this desperate for someone. Her mind has never been this blank and fuzzy. She's never felt this connected to someone, as if it's their thousandth first time doing this.

Her hand roving jealously over his shoulders grasps onto his arm as it finds his shoulder's solid firmness, but she's thrown back into the world by his body jumping and his breath pulling back quickly into his lungs in a painful gasp. She quickly takes her hands off of him as soon as his body jerks underneath her in pain and leans back to gauge how much hurt she just caused him. "I'm sorry, are you okay?" She asks him in a breathy tone.

His dark, lust filled eyes bore into her as he shakes his head. "I'm perfect," he moans and takes her cheek in his hand, pulling her back down to his incredible lips.

She feels herself smile into his kiss and leans him back into the couch, grabbing the seamline of the cushion with both hands, wrenching the fabric as she shimmies her hips deeper into his. His mouth opens up to hers again, kissing her with more passion than she was prepared for, once again running away with all her rational thoughts and stable nerve endings. Her body goes limp on top of him as she lets her lips fall into his while his hand moves from grasping the back of her neck to her waist, tugging her body into him.

Her breath hitches at the feeling, making her heart thud loudly inside of her chest. And as if taking it as his cue, his lips move from her mouth to her jawline, sliding his tongue down her jaw as his hot breath fans down her shirt. Her lungs steal her breath back when he starts this. His lips seal below her earlobe, sucking on the sensitive patch of skin with just enough force to tease her and just for long enough for her to be angry with him for leaving the spot so soon. He quickly travels down the column of her windpipe, pressing a tight kiss to her neck, making her dizzy. His lips them move to the other side as his hand takes her head again, turning it to give himself the opening he needs. And the instant his mouth presses at the spot just below her jaw, her body twists with ecstasy.

Enough so, it scares her. No one has ever been able to do that so quickly.

Reacting on instinct, her hands press against his chest, with one of them pressing a little too low for him. His body jerks under her again and his face contorts in agony as he winces at his still healing ribs. "How'd you do that?" She moans, feeling her head still swimming from side to side.

His hand is reaching up and grabbing onto his side, clutching his stomach in pain before he looks up to her with a tightened brow. "What are you talking about? I just kissed your neck." He half groans as he rubs his still injured ribs she had pressed against.

He pushes himself up the couch, which sends a quick jolt of pleasure through her system. "Castle, what you just did, it..." she trails off when she sees his eyes down onto his invisible injuries. She pauses, thinking about all he's been through and all he's been saying. "It was _just_ right. It's like... like you've done it before, like-"

"Like I was kissing my wife?" He asks for her, still gnashing his teeth and breathing in sharp, hesitant gasps.

Kate shakes her head, sitting back while still straddling him, pushing her hair behind her ear as things between them come to a stop. His injuries are still too fresh, his bone still too brittle. He seemed to convey wanting to power through it for both their sakes, but that seems to not be working. Gently, she rubs his chest before moving her hands to softly scratch the sides of his neck. She can see that dull pain in his eyes again, a deep longing for something she can't really offer him. "I heard you talking to Martha back at the loft this morning, Rick."

He finally lets out a relaxing sigh and sits himself back in her couch, putting his hand back on her leg, keeping his eyes and his fingers occupied with the hemline of her jeans.

"You think it was more than just a dream, don't you?"

He freezes after his jaw clicks, chewing on his answer. "I know I'm usually the first person to throw out a supernatural explanation, but it's different when it happens to you." She keeps him going, letting him know she's listening and that she cares by her hands soft, loving motions against his chest. "If it was just a dream, it wouldn't have seemed so real."

Kate nods, tugging gingerly at the sides of his button up. "What's the last thing you remember?" She asks him, earning herself his vulnerable eyes. "In the dream, I mean."

He lets out another heavy sigh and moves his hand from her thigh, up her body to hang on her hip bone. "I was tucking Lily into bed for the night. You had just gotten back from visiting family upstate, so you were in the twins room, wrestling. Despite their best efforts, they were still no match for a fully trained police officer, so you always ended up winning." That gives her a small chuckle, somehow being able to picture herself on the floor of the loft, wrestling with two twin versions of Castle. "Lily was never afraid of the dark."

"Really?" She asks, mostly for herself. She remembers being six-years-old, afraid of what lurks in the darkness, but being too proud to ask for the light to be left on.

A warm smile slowly blossoms onto his face as his eyes soften. "She'd say... if Mommy's not afraid of monsters, then I'm not either."

It isn't until she feels her teeth grab her lower lip that she realizes how big she's smiling. "Why does that sound exactly like something my daughter would say?"

"It drove you _nuts."_ He says pointedly. "You thought she was hinting that she wanted to be a cop and that you'd have to go through what your dad did."

She shakes her head, probably to shake away the memories he's feeding her or to shake off the feeling she's getting attached to them, she doesn't have the emotional forethought to deal with right now. "After that what happened?"

"I told Lily I loved her and said good night, met you in the hallway and we... went to bed. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a hospital I've never been to in a town I've barely even been to, with too many things demanding answers all of the sudden." He grits, clenching his teeth in frustration.

"Like the case?" She brings up, hoping it would lead them to what brought him here. It's a brief thought that shoots past her mind before she remembers the position they're still sitting in, with her straddling his lap with her hands enviously roving over his chest.

"Like how I can suddenly remember things you've never told me before." He admits, looking back up to her finally with anxiety and vulnerability shining too clearly in his blue eyes.

"Like what, Castle?" She prods, partly to know what else he knows.

"Like how you broke your arm when you were seven." That catches her breath again, knowing she's never told him about that. "You were spending the summer with your grandmother in upstate Vermont when you were playing with their family dog and fell down and broke your arm."

With the memory drifting effortlessly into her mind she smirks and nods her head, letting her eyes fall from him. "Yeah, I was so bummed at first, but-"

"But it ended up being the best summer you remember having as a kid." He interrupts her, knowing exactly what she's going to say and how the memory ends. She feels her blood grow cold when his words show such confidence. "Because both your parents took the summer off to take care of you. You told me that when Lily was just turning five and she accidentally fell down the stairs leading into the kitchen and broke her leg."

For some reason, the thought of her daughter in that situation makes her heart violently fold in on itself.

His eyes drift away from her again and back into deep memory. "I remember always thinking that you'd be phenomenal in those situations but... you were so terrified. Once we got her to the doctor, Lily even made a joke that Mommy might have been crying more than she was."

"That _definitely_ sounds like my daughter." She inserts. He laughs softly, a bright, humorous smile shining on his face as he pets her hipbone with his thumb. Once their laughter subsides after a few moments, she puts a gentle hand on his cheek, pulling his eyes back up to hers. "We'll figure it all out, okay? Just... for now, let's focus on reality."

Painfully, he seems to accept what she's saying, bitterly saying to himself that it's for the best. "Yeah, you're right."

She gives him a reassuring nod, brushing her nails through his hair before climbing off of him and sitting on her side next to him. "You said you remembered something?"

His eyes open widely in a flash and he quickly scrambles to his feet, attempting more than once to get up out of the plush cushions of her couch. She's on her feet before he is, guiding him up by his relatively healed right arm. Once on his feet, he gathers up his sling, putting it over his neck and resting his arm inside and pulling his dark blue hat over his head, once again hiding his embarrassing partly shaved head. "Yeah, uh... do you still have my yearbooks? I couldn't find them."

"Yeah, they're over here." She says to him as she's striding across her apartment to her still packed luggage. She takes up the blue plastic tout and heaves it over to her coffee table, careful not to smash the letter that's already become a priceless memento of their newly found love. She pulls off the lid and digs through the piles of photos and papers to find his yearbooks, pulling them out and laying them across her coffee table in front of him.

Castle sits back down slowly on her couch in front of the plastic tout containing the case. "Eric Lowery didn't run away."

"Everyone else seems to think so, Castle. He was a part of the foster program, you said it yourself."

"The orphan boys were always the most successful when it came to running away, but Eric was different. We talked. He wanted to get into college and work with disenfranchised teens like himself. _That's_ why he didn't turn in Kapowski for the fight. He thought that he was just going through things with his parents and needed help. He was going to let it slide, _despite_ the fact they put him in the hospital."

"Castle," She tries to slow him down and sits back down next to him, "he could have just been scared."

"He was scared, sure, but he felt that Kapowski just needed someone to listen to him or something. He was a good guy and I knew Kapowski just didn't like him because he was gay, so I went to the dean and I turned him in myself."

"Kapowski gets expelled and Eric disappears a few weeks later." Kate thinks out loud.

"Right," Castle affirms.

"We all thought Kapowski killed Eric and left him in the woods because of the fight, but that never made any sense to me. Why wouldn't he just come after you? Softer target, maybe?"

"Steven Kapowski didn't kill Eric. He never saw him again after the fight that night."

"Then who did? That seems to be the crux of all of this, Castle." Kate partially demands, motioning to the yearbooks he's flipping through.

"When you went to the school, did they mention anything about Eric that stood out?" He asks her as he flips through his yearbook quickly.

"Uhm... not really. Just that he was troubled and they couldn't do much when he disappeared. We didn't find out that he came from the foster system until I talked to Damian Westlake." She says while she thinks her hardest to remember what she was told by the elderly secretary at the school. "But," she continues, turning to him again, "the secretary did mention that Dean Bartley's predecessor was his mentor."

"And _that,"_ he says, confidently, setting the yearbook down and pointing to one of the last pages on the year 86-87, "is what took me to Vermont."

Kate looks from the picture he's pointing to, back up to him, silently asking for answers and gauging his reaction. "What?"

Castle leans forward gingerly and gives her a knowing look, the look he always gives her when he's beginning to explain things. "The night Eric Lower disappeared, the last thing he ever told me was that he was going to see the dean about a college recommendation letter. It was his dream to get into Columbia and that just so happened to be the dean's alma mater."

"So? That's normal, Castle." Kate shrugs.

"Yes... but he was gay."

Kate waits him out before double taking and giving him an obvious look. "Eric Lowery? Yeah, we know that."

"No, not Eric. The dean."

Kate's heart briefly stops before she shakes her head and knits her brow. "You're saying the dean was gay?"

Castle's brow lifts, "it started out as a shot in the dark to get me out of being expelled for the whole 'cow on the roof' thing, but once I made the accusation, I knew it was true. Most of us couldn't help but notice he'd only mentor _these_ kids right here." He says, pointing his finger to the picture in his yearbook. "He'd only ever take a special interest in the OBs."

"Wait," Kate says and lifts her hand, putting it down on his arm, "are you suggesting the _dean_ was sleeping with Eric Lowery?"

"Not just Eric Lowery."

"But Castle-"

"Think about it, Kate." He says excitedly and turns to face her fully on the couch. "These kids are disenfranchised, have no father figures in their lives, no parents to look out for them, no siblings, no one to come looking for them, easily manipulated by a powerful figure, especially one offering them help."

"So... the search I found on your laptop about missing persons..."

"Run a search of everyone in this photo right here, I'm willing to bet most of them will turn up still missing."

"So what brought you up to Brattleboro was the news report about Eric Lowery and how you remembered the dean was gay?"

"When I saw the news report, I remember what Eric told me right before he disappeared and it was the first time I'd ever put the pieces together. Up until then, I had no real reason to believe he _didn't_ just run away. But when I saw on the news about his remains being found and identified, I _knew_ that Dean Thomas had something to do with it."

"Who?" She asks, her heart jumping into her throat as her blood turns to ice in her veins.

Castle looks at her clueless, "Dean Kyle Thomas, he was the dean when I was at Edgewyck. He still lives near the school, I was coming back from asking him a few questions when I was run off the road. I don't know how, he's in his late seventies and-"

"Castle," She stops him, looking up to him with wide eyes and a straightened brow. "I know who tried to kill you."

* * *

 _A/N: Dizzy yet? ;)_


	23. Chapter 23

They're racing out of the city as fast as they can in Castle's silver Lexus, both antsy and anxious as they get caught in traffic jam after traffic jam. Kate is just speeding them down the high way up north when she's on her phone. "Ryan here." He says on the other end of the line.

"Ryan," She begins, looking over her shoulder to check if she's clear to change lanes, "I need you to get me everything you can dig up on Officer Kyle Thomas of Brattleboro, Vermont."

"The cop we met?" He asks with surprise and confusion. "Why?"

"It's a long story. Just get me what you can. Castle and I are headed back up there now. Is Esposito still there?" She asks as she stomps on the gas to make it passed the semi-truck.

She can hear the moment when she's put on speaker at the precinct. "What's up, Beckett?" Esposito asks in a slightly faded voice.

"Espo, get on the phone with the police department in Brattleboro and get me a whereabouts of Officer Thomas." She orders and gives him a moment to hear and process the demand. "If he's still there, have him kept there until Castle and I get there."

"Couldn't they just call him in?" Castle asks next to her.

She looks over to give him a quick glance, partially to gauge how he's dealing with all this, before she looks back to the road. "If they call him back in, he could get suspicious. I don't want him knowing we're on to him."

"Got it," Ryan chirps on the other end of the phone. Kate quickly takes the phone away from her ear and hits the speaker icon. She can't help but think back to the days in a brief instance of light-hearted memory when her partner would lean in close to her to hear the conversation. "Kyle Thomas... joined the force in 2007 and was a part of Boston PD for only six months before he was transferred out to Brattleboro. Clean record as far as disciplinary actions are concerned."

"Family life?" Castle asks, starting the questions he usually asks to build the character in his head, to profile the suspect as he usually does, to help him build the story.

"Uhh..." Ryan begins and gives them a pause for a long moment. "Divorced from his wife in 2008, just after his departure from Boston PD. They were only married a few years, beginning a year before they had a child. Looks like she still lives in Boston. From the looks of it, she contested custody of their son but eventually settled on joint custody through a mediator. Can't find anything more than that, but if his housing records of living in a one bedroom apartment in Brattleboro is any clue, I'm guessing the son still lives in Boston with his ex-wife."

"Does it say what caused the divorce?" Kate asks.

"Filed by her, citing... irreconcilable differences. Pretty vague, if you ask me." Ryan adds.

"Can you find anything on his parents, Ryan?" Castle asks, continuing in building his character.

They can both hear the soft clacking of computer keys through the receiver before Ryan answers. "Raised by his mom after from the age of four after his father committed suicide. Police report says he shot himself in their Boston home. It was Kyle who found the body. He was alone in the house when it happened and it wasn't until his mother came home that night that the police were called."

"That's got to leave some serious emotional scars." Kate interjects.

"And I once walked in on my mother and her boyfriend when I was eight." Castle adds in a dark voice. "We all have our emotional scars, Kate."

Knowing he's simply projecting his anger, she lets his quip roll off her back and sets her jaw, looking ahead to the road. "The only other family he has listed seems to be his grandfather, a Kyle Thomas, age seventy-seven, who... coincidentally, lives just west of Brattleboro. Guys, what's going on here?" Ryan finally asks.

"Ryan, think back." Kate begins, "when you were searching Kapowski's house with Officer Thomas, how did he seem to you?"

"I don't know, uh..." Ryan dejects, "nervous? A little bit antsy, maybe. I figured he was just nervous conducting the search. Happens to the best of us, especially rookies."

"Ryan, Castle and I are still a few more hours outside of Brattleboro, GPS has us arriving at just before eight o'clock. If you don't hear from us by eight thirty, send out the cavalry, got it?"

"You got it, boss." Ryan chirps again before another set of stomping footsteps come sounding through the speaker.

"Beckett," Esposito starts, "I got on the horn with Brattleboro PD. They say Thomas left for the night once he was finished with his beat. They're scoping out his apartment now and they're going to get back to you."

"Thanks, guys." Without another word, Kate clicks the red icon on her phone to end the call and lets it fall down into the center console behind the shifter. "This guy's been playing me from the _very_ beginning!" Kate seethes as she presses down on the gas forcefully, sending the car well past the legal limit, more so than she already is.

"This guy's dean Thomas' grandson?" Castle asks, looking over to her with a pinched brow.

"How could I have not seen it sooner? He was just... so willing to help."

"You had other things to worry about, Kate." Castle tries to reassure her.

"I even _told_ him that first day at the hospital that in cases like this, the killer tends to insert themselves into the police investigation. He was the one person I had on the inside, the one person that could keep them from writing what happened to you off." She rattles off, chastising herself for being so careless with her trust. She thinks back to the case, the time she spent running everything down, his surprise and shock in his demeanor when she told him that night that she suspected a cop had been involved by the marks on Castle's car, how he came by the hospital after hearing Castle was awake. "I swear to god, I'm going to kill this son of a bitch." She seethes through grinding teeth again.

"How'd he pull all this off? You were running all of this down for a week, weren't you?"

Kate turns to him, her defenses on and up in full. "I had Alexis to worry about!" She softly shouts. "After Ryan and Espo got themselves assigned to the case after what happened to her, we scrambled to connect the dots with Lowery, you, and anyone in the area with an ax to grind. Steven Kapowski was the _only_ one that fit _and_ he ran when we first tried to question him. We put all our focus on him."

"But how'd he get the truck in Kapowski's home?"

Thinking back to the day in the police department to her doling out orders, she feels herself sink with guilt and shame. "When me and Espo went to bring Kapowski in, I sent Thomas to his home and told him to wait for Ryan to show up, who was coordinating from Edgewyck an hour away from town. He would have had plenty of time to plant the truck, wipe down the prints, and get rid of the documentation. We had assumed the registration papers were missing because Kapowski planned on torching the truck but didn't get the chance before we arrested him."

"All he had to do was wait for his opening and frame Kapowski. Once you found the truck on his property, you stopped looking for other suspects and he was in the clear."

"Until you woke up at the hospital and that's why he came down and asked me if you remembered anything. He was afraid you'd peg him as the real killer. But why come after Alexis? The only way for him to know she helped me out at the school was if he somehow still had a connection to the school somehow, like you thought Kapowski did."

"Who did you talk to when you were there?" He asks in a knowing tone.

"Just the dean and his secretary." Kate shrugs.

"Not Linda." He answers back. Kate sends him a curious look, quickly before turning back to the road. "Short lady, curly hair, wears glasses on a band, dresses like an extra from Little House on the Prairie?"

"I guess, why?"

He smirks and shakes his head as he painfully readjusts himself in his chair, tugging at his seatbelt. "When I went to question Dean Thomas at his home, I noticed that he had his prescription sitting outside the door, along with a small care package of baked goods. And with no car, there has to be someone dropping it off."

"So? His grandson still lives in the area, he could be taking care of him."

"Not unless his grandson dots his 'I's with little smiley faces. Trust me, I've gotten many a detention slip and excuse from Linda with those smiley faced letters, I know it when I see it. Linda never married, she doesn't have any family of her own, so she compensates by taking care of people around town and volunteering. I'm willing to bet she does the same for her previous boss. She probably mentioned to him when she was visiting him that you had stopped by with Alexis."

"He tells his grandson that someone is asking questions about him and he has his grandson take care of it, thinking Alexis might know something about your past and he goes after her at the hotel."

"He was probably worried that Alexis knew just as much about Dean Thomas as I did. Why else would he go after a teenager in broad daylight in the parking lot of a hotel?"

"The day of the shooting, Officer Thomas was one of the last to arrive on the scene." She thinks out loud, remembering how he was just jogging up nearly hours after the shooting happened, explaining it away by saying his wife had his son that weekend. "He claimed his wife had his son that weekend, but..."

"Hey," Castle calls over to her sternly, waiting for her to acknowledge him. After a moment, she looks over and sees him softly gazing over to her, conveying as much reassurance as he can. "You saved my daughter's life that day, Kate. That's all that matters." He squashes her doubts.

Not having it in herself to smile and be pleased, she simply nods and turns back to look down the road. "What I still don't get is why? Why do all this? Why would he come after you and try to kill you?"

"If his grandfather molested countless boys at school, there's no real reason to believe he didn't stop at home." He says contemplatively.

"You-" She bites her words, looking over to him quickly, "you think he molested his own son too?"

"Kyle was four when his father committed suicide. He didn't even bother to take his own child out of the house? That's not something a person who grew up abuse free does, Kate. I'm willing to bet his grandfather molested his father as a child on top of what he did to the boys at Edgewyck."

"But why would this guy agree to help keep his grandfather's secrets under wraps? He has to know what he's done, Castle."

"Kyle probably tried his best to put it behind him, to his credit." Castle begins, lifting his hand. "But there has to be a reason why his wife left him when they just had a son."

"You're so sure? I mean," She bites her tongue, cautious with her words as she chances a glance over in his direction, seeing his brow straight with inwardly directed anger, "I know Meredith was the one who filed for divorce after she's the one that cheated on you."

"Yes, but she didn't contest custody of Alexis like Kyle's wife did. His wife filing for sole custody is a sign that she didn't trust him with their son. If I were to write it, it'd be because Kyle found a little bit of his grandfather's demon in himself."

"He could be forcing Kyle to do his dirty work, it could be a family connection thing. This isn't a novel, Castle."

"Not yet, anyway." He quips and looks out the front windshield. "Either way, this guy tried to kill my daughter. I can almost get over him wanting to kill me, after all, he wouldn't be the first, but..."

"Yeah, well..." Kate continues for him, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel, "he tried to kill the man I love." She tells him with a squeezing heart, looking over to his soft and surprised eyes after a moment. "That's something I can't get over."

It's then that her phone rings in the center console. She blindly fumbles for it and clicks the speaker icon with her thumb, seeing it's Esposito. "What's the word on Thomas, Javi?"

"They sent his partner over to his apartment, but he's not there. Neighbors say he hasn't been back since this morning. And they can't put a bolo out on his patrol car because-"

"Because he'd see it." Kate finishes. She then looks over to her partner, "They don't have a motor pool up there, the officers just drive their cars home." She informs him quickly. "Damn it," She grits. "We're still two hours outside of the Vermont line, Espo. Tell the police in Brattleboro to keep this quiet. If we spook him, he might try something more drastic than he already has."

"Got it, boss." The line clicks and she lets her phone fall back down into the center console.

They drive silently and both all too anxiously, passing through into Massachusetts with the arrival time on their GPS clicking down sooner and sooner with every passing mile. It's dark by the time they're nearing the Vermont line and Kate is forced to switch on the headlights. Once she sees a sign of the Vermont line approaching, she feels her heart tell her to reach out, feels herself pull out to him and open up. "Rick."

She sees him look over to her with a casual purse of his lips, "Hmm?"

"Whatever happens-"

"You're going to be fine, Kate." He tries to stop her.

"But whatever happens," She presses him, looking into his baby blue eyes that shine with white twinkles from the headlights and darkened red from the taillights of the traffic on the road, "I love you."

His eyes soften and his lips fall into a warm smile. "I love you, Kate."

She feels herself immersed in his words, his tone, his being, briefly letting herself be consumed by his presence. She nods to herself and looks ahead, seeing they just passed into Vermont. "We're about twenty minutes away. I'm thinking we should wait him out at his grandfather's house."

"Brings new meaning to the all too familiar phrase 'please report to the dean's office'." He cracks as he looks out his window.

They quickly pass into the mostly quiet town, turning west out of town, doing down the same empty road Castle had driven on that night two weeks ago. "This is it, this is where you were found. You were headed in the opposite direction from here."

"Yeah, I went to go ask the dean about what happened to Eric. I was only there for... twenty minutes maybe. Suffice it to say, he wasn't all too pleased to see me, especially when I started asking about Eric. He tried to pretend he didn't know who I was talking about, but thanks to you, I'd like to think I'm pretty good at telling when someone is lying. I could tell he knew and that he had something to do with it."

Kate nods and checks her surroundings, slowing down when she passes the impound lot. "So, after you questioned him, you left and tried to call me."

"Yeah, and that's when-"

" _Castle, look out!"_ She yells as she sees a darkened patrol car with the headlights off speed toward her from behind.

Within a split second, she feels her seatbelt dig into her chest and her body pull on itself as the car slams forward. Her mind is only a blank void as her fight, flight, or freeze instinct decides what to do. Once she sees the rearview mirror crocked and useless, she slams on the gas as hard as she can, but feels the tires sputter, locking up in place against the pavement. After another attempt and with the car quickly jerking and swerving to a stop against the side of the road, all stepping on the gas gets her is the rev of the engine.

"Castle, are you okay?"

She doesn't get her answer before the back windshield is being shattered by the sound of a gunshot. She quickly leans forward, throwing her hands over her head as she ducks for cover behind the driver's seat. She lets out a hard breath, steeling herself and unclicking her seatbelt. In one fluid motion, starting just as another shot is ripping through the front windshield, she rolls out of her side and pulls her Kahr from her side, putting two shots in the direction of the patrol car that rammed her. She doesn't bother to aim as she quickly runs around the front of the car and gets to the passenger side. Once at his door, she lifts her gun again and sends another shot toward the patrol car, seeing sparks fly off the hood.

"Castle, come on!" She urges him and pulls him out of his side as quickly as she can. They both duck down as Thomas fires off another four shots towards them, the bullets whizzing past them. "Come on, we've got to move." She tells him as she puts her arms around him and pulls his arm over her shoulders to aid him, tugging his large frame against her as best she can, firing another bullet behind her toward Thomas. They quickly jog into the dark woods, the brush and pine needles crunching under their quick, limping pace.

"Ragh!" A voice yells from behind them just before another barrage of gunfire lets loose towards them. The fourth and fifth shot whiz past them, but at the sound of the sixth shot, Kate feels a sharp pain tear through her right shoulder before her arm goes numb, forcing her to drop her gun to the ground.

" _Agh!"_ She shouts in pain.

"Kate?" He asks quickly, stopping in their uneven jogging to turn to her. "Kate, honey, are you okay?"

She grinds her teeth together and holds her arm to her stomach, letting herself fall into his side. "Keep going, he's still coming."

Another gunshot rips through the still, cold air of the Vermont woods and tears into a passing tree, with another going through the air with a buzz. She feels him pull her into his side as best he can, but she can also hear his breath turn ragged and tired. "No... no, not again." He spits as he limps slower and slower.

With another tired step, he falls to the forest floor, bringing her down with him. Kate can feel herself getting dizzy, knowing that she's losing blood quickly. Using all her energy, she pushes herself over and lays herself down in his side under his arm, putting her head down on his right shoulder as he leans back against a tree. Her breath coming in short gasps, she looks up through the woods and sees Officer Thomas running toward them with his gun on them. "You..." She tries.

"No, not this time." Thomas finally speaks as he wags the gun at them. "You're not getting away this time."

"It's over, Kyle." Castle says in a strong, certain tone. "We've already told the police everything. We know about your grandfather. We know what he did."

"My grandfather didn't do _anything!"_ He shouts, his voice straining at his volume. "You understand? He's a _good_ man!"

"He abused your father so badly he took his own life, Kyle! He molested and killed underage boys from Edgewyck Academy, god only knows how many."

"He's a good man! You don't know him!" He shouts again, angry emotion soiling his voice with his gun still wagging in the air and shaking as he points it between the two of them.

"Is that why your wife left you, Kyle? She found out about your own escapades?"

"Shut _up!"_

"You ever have thoughts about your _own_ son, Kyle? Your father had it happen to him, after all. How long before the department finds out about the supervised visitations, huh?"

Thomas shuffles forward and points his gun directly at the man whose arms she's lying in, feeling her body quickly getting heavier and heavier. "I said _shut up!"_ Thomas shouts.

"That's it, isn't it? You're afraid if word gets out about your grandfather, people start asking questions about you. Is that it? You end up in prison for a restraining order violation filed by your ex-wife and you end up shanked in the showers because the inmates find out what you're really in for? Is that what you're afraid of, Kyle?"

"I _said,"_ Thomas starts again in an angry, seething voice, " _shut-"_

The sound of another gunshot silences the woods. Kate feels him pull her closer into his side, seeing in her hazy vision his large form roll over her. "No," She breathes with her heart already breaking. "Cas... Rick, speak to me." She demands in a raspy voice.

The sound of his breath letting out in a long sigh and the feeling of his shoulders rising and falling under her limp head makes her heart unclench. Her eyes look forward through the woods, seeing Thomas lying on the ground, lifeless and motionless. Behind him, from the edge of the road, is a large man, standing behind a tree with a hunting rifle. The man steps out from behind the tree and comes into view. "You guys alright?" Another familiar, deep, guttural voice asks him.

"Earl..." She breathes as the large set, burly man in a flannel shirt comes jogging up to them, setting his rifle down to the ground.

"Kate?" She hears Castle call out to her, feeling his hand on her cheek. "Stay with me, okay?"

She lets out another, struggling breath before she feels her eyes slide shut.

* * *

 _A/N: Next chapter will wrap everything up in a nice, tidy bow!_

Only problem is, I can't tie a bow! D:

I'll just buy one then. :)


	24. Chapter 24 (Epilogue)

_A/N: Okay, I lied...one more twist. How many of you guessed this one? I tried to hint at it a bit, and I think some of you may have gotten it. I hope this epilogue ties everything up nice and neatly. :)_

 _This story has been such a joy and pleasure to write! It's been, by very far, my most wildly popular story and I'm so immensely grateful. I have another idea I'm going to pursue. A 4x01 AU about what would happen if Kate was being honest when she told Rick she didn't remember her shooting. Going to go very AU with it. Be on the look out!_

* * *

Her eyes lids feel heavy and tired when she tries to open them, like lifting lead weights. Her head feels limp and weak, her muscles so tired and numb she can't even move it from side to side. Her whole body feels this way. She just feels heavy and numb. She can't seem to remember anything besides the gunshot and the woods. She remembers her last moments, seeing Thomas on the ground with Earl jogging up to them.

There's a voice echoing in her ears, but she can't make out what it's saying. "I... heart, but we're here... I've been..." She manages to make out before the voice fades again.

She lets out a breath that makes her chest feel empty and tries once again to open her eyes without success after all she gets is the light shining through her eyelids. "She'll wake up though, right?" A little girl's voice asks, sounding sweet, innocent, and so darling. A voice that implores her to smile.

"She will, princess. Don't worry." She hears her partner say, the echoes of his voice fading completely as her senses start to filter back online.

"I miss her, Daddy." The little girl says in a sad tone.

She finally manages to crack open her aching eyes and sees Rick sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, clad in a casual outfit of a blue flannel shirt and jeans and a little girl with dark brown hair cut short near her neck sitting crossways in his lap. The little girl is in a pair of khaki capris, sandals, and a light green blouse. The mere sight of her is sending her heart strings pulling violently, not even aware as to why. The last thing her slow mind picks up before her eyes drift shut again is the little girl laying her head down on Castle's shoulder and him moving his arms around her.

"I do too, princess." She can even hear the heavy emotion thickening her partner's voice.

But the only thing her heart can seem to react to is the voice of the little girl, no older than six, sitting in his lap.

"But," he begins in a lighter voice, while her eyes are still unwilling to let her open them, "that's why I've been here everyday reading to her. Remember what the doctor said?"

"That she can hear us if we talk to her." The girl says in a sad tone. Her voice is making Kate's heart ache far too painfully, she just wants to scream at her own body for not being able to get up and hold her. "But if Mommy's asleep, how can she hear us?"

 _Mommy?_ The word resonates through her heart, giving her veins the first feeling of life in what seems like a lifetime. "She's not really asleep, Lily. Not like you and I go to sleep. She's just getting better. That's why I brought you and your little brothers to see her on Friday."

"Why couldn't we see her sooner, Daddy? Mommy's been here forever." The little girl sounds off as if she's pouting.

She can hear the moment when Castle chuckles under his breath. "It's only been two weeks, princess. But yeah, it does seem like forever without her, huh? Let me ask you a question, baby. Who's the strongest _,_ bravest person in the world?"

"You?" The girl asks.

And she can hear Castle smile from here, "Besides me, Lily."

"Mommy?" Lily says, and it's this moment when Kate works up enough energy to crack open her heavy eyes again and sees the little girl looking up at Castle with her head laid down on his shoulder, with him looking down at her with a loving, almost fatherly smile adorning his handsome face.

"That's right," he answers back just as her eyes drift shut again. She can feel herself getting more and more energy, the weight and numbness slowly melting away the more the little girl talks. "But because of the crash, she needed help breathing. And she wouldn't have wanted you to see her like that. That's why I didn't want you kids to see her until last Friday."

"But _you've_ been here, Daddy. You've been here every day."

"Mmhmm," Castle hums to her and sounds as if he's readjusting himself in his chair, "I've been reading her your Daddy's new story."

"Reaching Heat." The girl reads slowly. "What's it about?"

"It's about a brave police detective helping out her partner after he gets hurt. She helps him out and she finds the bad guy that hurts him, just like your mother does."

"Can you read it to me, Daddy?"

"Sure, princess. Go tell Mommy you love her and I'll read you a little bit, okay?"

Kate's breath locks inside her chest as she hears the girl slide from Castle's lap and land on the linoleum floor with her sandals sending a loud slap across the room. There's a moment in Kate's mind when she wonders if the girl is coming over to her bedside or perhaps another bed in the room, preparing her heart for whatever feeling is to come if it's not her the little girl is going to see. But as the sound of the little girl's flip flops get louder as they cross the room, her heart shoots up into her throat. She can feel the little girl's eyes on her as she lay in the hospital bed.

The world seems to stop for a second before Kate feels a warm, loving, small set of fingers wrap themselves around her right palm laying down against the sheets of her bed. "I love you, Mommy."

It's with those words ringing in her mind that her body fills with energy and she takes the girl's hand, enveloping it with her fingers.

The girl gasps loudly, "Daddy! Mommy grabbed my hand, she's awake!"

The sound of the wooden legs of the chair skidding across the floor sounds from across the room. She can feel the presence of her partner at her bedside in an instant, still holding onto the small hand for dear life. "Kate, honey? Are you awake?" He asks her, putting his much larger hand on her right shoulder, his thumb softly petting her arm.

She finally opens her eyes fully to the brightly lit, sunny room of the familiar looking hospital. But the first thing they fall upon is the beautiful little girl holding onto her hand with a huge smile spreading across her beautiful face and her light hazel eyes sparkling with love and excitement instantly feeling her heart connected to her. "I know you, don't I?" She rasps in a weak voice, the corners of her lips wanting to spread into a smile.

"Yeah, Daddy wouldn't let us come and see you for a whole week, not until Friday. But he's been here every day, reading to you from his new story." Lily quickly raddles off.

And Kate's mind is sending flickerings of images into her brain, things that she feels are so familiar, they're precious memories but feel as if she's seeing them for the first time. Of this little girl as a tiny, newborn infant, of the moment when she's set into her arms for the first time, of falling into her arms after her first steps. But it all feels so unfamiliar, all at the same time. Still, Kate soon feels a soft, tired smile lifting the corners of her mouth, her eyes not being able to tear themselves away from this little girl, Lily.

"Kate? How are you feeling, hun?" Rick asks at her bedside, putting his other hand on Lily's back.

But she lets him go unanswered, still holding onto Lily's hand and gazing at her beautiful face. This is the little girl he was talking about, the little girl he dreamt about, the little girl that he said was their daughter... her daughter. Kate gives Lily's hand a soft squeeze and runs her thumb down her wrist. "You're even more beautiful than I imagined." Kate says to her.

Lily's smile softens into slight bashfulness as she blinks up widely at Kate. "The doctor told us that you could hear us even though you were asleep. Could you hear us, Mommy? Jake and Reese didn't say much, but _I_ did."

Kate's heart soars as her mind starts letting the pieces fall into place and starting to let the fog clear. "My little Lily." She says in an emotionally strained voice, still hanging onto the girl's hand. "You have your grandmother's hair, you know that?"

"Uhm..." Castle starts next to her and takes his hand off her shoulder, putting it down onto Lily's and leaning down close to her, "Lily, go find your brothers. They should be with Alexis, okay?"

Lily looks up to her father with a smile and takes her hand back, but Kate's smile vanishes as she looks between the little girl she feels she just met but already feels so connected to and the man standing next to her, whose sending her off. "No," Kate begins, "no, no, wait!" Kate weakly demands and pushes her hand off the bed.

Lily turns back around and steps back up to her bedside with a soft smile.

Lily's smile sends her mother's heart fluttering wildly inside her still heavy chest, and she puts a hand on her daughter's cheek, softly cupping the girl's perfect face. The fog seems to clear for a moment as she looks into Lily's eyes. "Be careful, okay?"

"Okay, Mommy! I love you!" Lily exclaims and spins around, starting to skip toward the door to her familiar looking hospital room. " _Mommy's awake!"_ The excited little girl shouts as she jumps in the air halfway to the door, reaching for the ceiling as she does. Lily opens the door and walks with child-like speed down the hallway.

Kate's eyes remain glued to the door as it slides shut. Once it latches back into place, she sees her partner moving next to her bedside, leaning back down close to her. "Honey, are you okay?" He asks in a far more loving tone than he was a second ago.

She looks back up to him, her head still limply leaning back against her propped up hospital bed... in a room that looks far too familiar from a world she isn't even sure is the real one or not. And given a second to take everything in, she looks down to herself, seeing her left arm in a dark blue sling, her shoulder feeling stiff and swollen, her left leg feeling heavy and weak, her ribcage aching and pinching, and her head feeling limp and lopsided as it sloshes from side to side.

But as she looks back up to him, her eyes fall upon his hand as he reaches up to brush his fingers down her cheek. Reacting quickly, she reaches up and takes his left hand, quickly finding his ring finger with her thumb and forefinger, pinching the warm, platinum ring adorning his finger. Once she sees it for herself, everything starts to click.

It wasn't his dream.

But her's.

"You weren't the one that was dreaming, were you?" She asks him as his bright, sparkling blue eyes haze with concern and confusion. Rick carefully entwines his fingers with her's as she's looking around the room, the same room she clearly remembers visiting in Brattleboro, time and time again as she was waiting for _him_ to wake up. "It was me."

"Honey, you were in a-"

"Car crash." She finishes. "But..." She says and looks around the room again until she remembers Lily sitting in his lap, "it was you."

"Kate, what's going on? You remember me, don't you? You remember Lily?" He asks in a tight voice, his eyes starting to glimmer as he reaches up and cups her cheek.

Her eyes drift shut at his contact, leaning herself into his touch and covering his hand with her's. She lets herself revel in his familiar warmth and an overwhelming about of love for a long moment before she opens her eyes again, the lines connecting her heart and her mind when she looks into his eyes at how much she loves and adores this man, hopefully her husband. "We're married, aren't we?"

"Y-yes, we're married. Going on eight years now."

"The case, with..." She begins before trailing off, letting the fog clear from her mind, "you were reading to me."

"Yeah, I've been going nuts worrying about you. I've been narrating a new book idea for the past two weeks. They had you on a ventilator for a little over a week but I didn't want the kids seeing you like that. But they managed to take you off ventilation and we've just been waiting now, so..."

"Last Friday... that's when..."

He wasn't the one dreaming.

He was the one dose of her reality. He didn't glimpse into a future or another universe that wasn't really theirs. He was the one voice in her dream that was right, reminding her it was a world she had built. A world she had built around his words and his story. All the times she spoke to the doctor about his injuries wasn't about him, but her. All the casework and the talks with his family, filtered into her mind and put into her dream by a fantasy her mind had built. A way for her body to help heal itself while her mind goes somewhere else.

She looks around the hospital room again before she falls upon him again. "We're in Brattleboro, aren't we?"

"Yeah, we spend the summers up here, remember? You were visiting your cousin upstate and you rolled the Lexus four times after you swerved to miss a deer in the road. The doctor said we might have to worry about some memory problems, but I didn't think it would be this-"

"What are you thinking reading our six-year-old daughter one of your novels, Rick? She's _six._ " She softly scolds in a tired voice, her mind coming back to itself.

He pauses and stares at her before his face melts into a bright smile and cups her cheek again, everything coming back to her.

It's then that the door flies open and her boys come flying in. "Mommy!" They shout in unison with bright, open smiles and sparkling baby blue eyes, her two miniature versions of their father running up to her bedside, leaving Alexis to stand in the doorway with a loving smile as she watches it all unfold.

"Hey, gremlins!" She greets them both as Jake is the first to come to bedside, leaving his brother to come up behind him. She reaches over the railing and puts her fingers against Jake's cheek. "I had a dream about you, baby bear." She says to him.

"Yeah?" Jakes asks.

"Did you dream about me too, Mommy?" Reese asks after his brother.

"Yep," Kate says with a smile as her eyes drift over her family. "About all of you."

 **END**


End file.
